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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27666296">sorry about the blood in your mouth (i wish it was mine)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashlearose13/pseuds/ashlearose13'>ashlearose13</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ALSO LAURA, Alternate Universe, Angst, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, F/M, Historical Inaccuracy, I HATE HER TOO OKAY, I'm Going to Hell, Lots of Angst, NaNoWriMo 2020, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Pain, SHE'S THERE FOR LIKE ONE SECOND, The Old Guard - Freeform, War, i am sobbing, idk what else to tag, like fully sobbing but it's fine, okay so much pain, some love, they're soulmates ur honour, this fic has many deaths it is just a Fact, this is hell fic lmao, um witch trials??, who am i kidding lots of love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:53:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>47,042</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27666296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashlearose13/pseuds/ashlearose13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about dying is that it's only supposed to happen once.</p><p>-</p><p>or, the old guard x clintnat crossover that has been tormenting me for months x</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sorry about the blood in your mouth (i wish it was mine)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi hello i am finally. finished. this fic started as my nanowrimo 2020 project and unfortunately i didn't get to finish in time bc you know, real world issues. anyway. this fic took a part of my soul with it. i love it and i hate it and i don't ever want to think about it again, but she's here and i'm still proud of it. this fic brought many tears but it also brought so many fun times (decoding the acronym for the title literally got me through one of the worst weeks of my life so ty)</p><p>i want to thank cheree and shelby and bryce and em (also basically everyone on twitter) for helping me through without really knowing anything of what is going on. i love ALL OF U!! 💕💕<br/>also biggest thank u to matilda for reading snippets with absolutely no idea of what was going on and also for having to watch all my breakdown snaps ✨ ur the best i love u<br/>i truly don't know what else to say about this except that it took so much from me but i'm so glad i stuck with it. </p><p>okay so bc of like. the whole thing with the au or whatever: there's a lot of death in the fic, somewhat graphic occasionally, so pls take care of yourself!! small mentions of sewer slide— when i say that this is ANGSTY I MEAN IT. not much else in way of warnings that i can think of but yea anyway &lt;3</p><p>so here we go. hell fic 2020, finally, finally finished. i hope you love it. thank you for reading this ✨✨</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"It's not the length of a life that matters, just the depth of it. The chances we take. The paths we choose. How we go on after our hearts break. Hearts always break.</p><p>And so we bend with our hearts. And we sway.</p><p>But in the end, what matters is that we loved and lived."</p><p>— Marjorie Liu, "Black Widow: The Name of the Rose"</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>The thing about dying is that it’s only supposed to happen once.</p><p>Clint’s on his knees. Winter licks at his face and spreads like icy poison down his neck; down, down to his broken legs and frozen toes. If he could see his blood he knows that it would be red. All he sees instead is the glint of the axe swinging towards his unprotected chest.</p><p>He never wanted to die on his knees, but he knows that it will happen that way: he will die on his knees and his mother will never know what became of her son except for the fact that he <em> did </em>die, his horse returning riderless and his bones sinking into the Earth. If there’s anything left of him they might give it to her, but Clint knows his mother. She’ll leave him outside the door like he was never there to begin with.</p><p>His life doesn’t flash before his eyes, or maybe it does and he blinks and misses it. If he moves – if he <em> could </em> move – he might break the spell. He might tumble into something that is less certain than death at the hands of his enemy and he’s not sure that he’s ready for that, but he’s also not ready to die. So he folds his hands like a prayer and exhales, his last breath floating, soft as feathers, into a sky that he will die under again and again and again.</p><p>But Clint doesn’t know this, and the axe swings downwards towards his heart, and the pain only lasts a minute. His heart does stop; he falls, eyes empty, the very soul of him trapped in some unknown place. Frost settles over his body; he’ll feel it for centuries, but he doesn’t know this yet. When his blood inches its way back to him, when the open wound on his chest splinters itself back together, he will only know that something, somewhere, went very, very wrong.</p><p>Because that’s the thing about dying. It’s only supposed to happen once.</p><p>- </p><p>Clint’s never liked winter, and it’s not just because he died in the snow. Winter means a bad harvest and the disapproval of his parents, even though it’s been years since he buried the both of them at the edge of the cemetery, too poor to pay for anything other than the shovel he used to dig the hole. It’s been years and he can still feel his father’s steely stare; his eyes were the only thing that Clint inherited in the end, because not even the Barton name could save him from being outcast the moment he had returned to the village.</p><p>When he feels the first stirrings of snow he moves North, leaving the echo of his mother’s indifference and his father’s cruelty on the banks of the River Glyme. The days shorten; Clint walks with his bow strapped to his back and not much else to get him by. Self-preservation doesn’t come naturally to him anymore, but he’s got enough sense to at least give himself a chance. All he’s ever wanted was a chance.</p><p>His first death had been unremarkable, even though he had known that it was coming. The axe had been sharp and his chest plate had crushed easily beneath it’s blade; both things had done exactly as they should in that situation. The axe, killing him, and his chest unable to protect his heart under the force. None of it had hurt until later, when he was alone and his bones had started to mend themselves. His first death had been unremarkable, but it had also been the first.</p><p>Clint’s second death was the same day, throwing himself back into battle only to have his cockiness become his downfall. Dying twice was by any means an extraordinary effort; three times it became repetitive. And yet he lives, and continues to live, no matter what happens to his body in the meantime. That’s another reason why he doesn’t like winter: it’s drawn out, like an eternity of being reborn. </p><p>France is something new, anyway, and despite not being as warm as he had hoped it does take the chill off. He boards up in a room with a wash basin and a single bed, and somehow it’s still nicer than what he left behind in Kiddington. When his head finally hits the pillow it’s been three days since he’s slept.</p><p>It’s also been three days since he’s dreamt.</p><p>-</p><p>There are universal truths in the world. In the five years since the axe he’s seen more people lowered into the ground than he cares to remember. Clint doesn’t believe in fate even though he hasn’t died yet. In a world like his, it’s a little hard to believe anything.</p><p>Still, he dreams. Tonight he sees the girl, blonde hair and round face; a soft face, even when scrunched in pain. He’s watching her die, watching a knife glide over her wrist like butter. He doesn’t understand why she’s doing it, but it’s the fifth time he’s watched her and it never changes. She dies. He wakes in a cold sweat, clutching at a scar that is the only part of him that hasn’t healed.</p><p>Clint heads to the basin and washes his face. Water splatters the mirror and he catches sight of someone behind him, in the doorframe. His first instinct is to reach for the bow that rests beside his bed, and it’s an instinct he holds onto with both hands. This is the kind of muscle memory he needs to keep himself alive: the chance at avoiding another painful rebirth, the chance at feeling fleetingly <em> human </em> again when his fingers curl around an arrow. </p><p>"This room’s taken," he says gruffly. His voice is foreign to his own ears. "You lost?"</p><p>The boy is small, his face sunken. "Je ne comprends pas."</p><p>Clint doesn’t speak French. He does speak hunger, fear, all of the other things he sees swimming in the boy’s eyes. He hasn’t got much to give, and it’s far too late at night to send the child to a market with his spare change. He points out his quiver and turns a blind eye when the boy takes his whole money pouch, and then he’s gone before Clint can think to give him the chunk of bread under his pillow, too.</p><p>He can’t go back to sleep. The idea of seeing the girl’s face again is enough to make him shoulder his quiver and leave the room behind. He’s not sure if the dream means anything or if he’s maybe just going insane. A part of him hopes for the latter, if only so he can blame the last few years of his life on a poor mental state and not whatever freak accident led him to being like <em> this</em>. </p><p>Clint has his quiver and what’s left of his belongings, and he steps out into the night with his father’s coat concealing his bow. In Kiddington he would hunt for game and sell it to the people who didn’t believe the rumours, and it was an honest enough way to make a living. He could go back to that, if France fails him. He has a feeling that it will; that he’ll be stuck in this perpetual Hell with no way to escape the monotony as the world changes around him. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to keep up with it.</p><p>He’s just a man with a bow and a knack for coming back to life. Whatever happens next is history. </p><p>-</p><p>Clint doesn’t come back to the room in Paris, instead walking further towards Amiens. He needs a horse to save himself from the blisters and exhaustion, but none of it seems to really matter when the broken skin on his heel patches itself up a second later. He walks and walks, staving off sleep until he physically can’t go on, all in the name of avoiding the face of a girl that he doesn’t even know. </p><p>He’s at the cathedral in Amiens when he first notices that he’s being followed. The cathedral is one of the biggest he’s ever seen and still smells like fresh stone; he sits heavily in a pew and breathes it all in, weary and more than a little sore. He uncorks his water flask and gulps down a mouthful of water that tastes of dirt. He's not died from disease yet. It might make the rest of his year a little more interesting.</p><p>When he looks up there's a woman watching him, and the sight of her makes his breath catch in his throat. She stands at the altar, hair as red as fire curling loosely around her shoulders. His mother would say witch, his father whore; Clint thinks, more than anything, that she looks extraordinarily like him, in the way that her eyes seem filled with a deep, impenetrable sadness. The corners of her lips tug up slightly at the corners and he finds himself smiling back without really knowing why.</p><p>His face is filthy. He knows that weeks of walking hasn't treated him well, and if he was his <em> old </em>self, the self that didn't come back to life every time his heart stopped beating, he might care about it in the face of a woman as beautiful as her. She approaches him slowly and he wipes the last water droplets from the scruffy beard he's let grow wild, keeping his gaze locked with hers until she's standing right in front of him.</p><p>"Bonjour," she says softly, voice rich like honey and foreign as sin. She's not French, though she could get away with it if she needed to. "Tu es un homme difficile à trouver."</p><p>"Don't speak French," he says gruffly, then clears his throat and straightens. "Uh, English?"</p><p>"I asked how you were," the woman replies.</p><p>Clint's not convinced that's what she actually said, but he humours her. "Just swell. Admiring the architecture."</p><p>"It's a beautiful cathedral," she agrees. "Do you mind?"</p><p>Clint shuffles over, his boots thudding clumsily against the floor. The woman sits beside him and the sweet scent of lavender washes over him. There's something else there too, something slightly bitter that burns the inside of his nose. It's addicting even where it stings.</p><p>"Are you looking for someone?" he asks. "Are you... Are you lost?"</p><p>"No," she says evenly. "I'm exactly where I need to be."</p><p>Clint huffs a laugh and runs his hand through his hair, shoulders bumping up towards his ears. "I'm glad one of us is."</p><p>"What's your name?" she says, ignoring his awkwardness. Now that she's closer he can see flecks of gold amidst the emerald green of her eyes. He's seen that before, the tiny specks of something magical. "I'm Natalia."</p><p>"Clint. You're not from around here."</p><p>"I'm from wherever I want to be," Natalia smiles. "It gives me a lot more freedom."</p><p>"I'm from Kiddington," he tells her. "Nothing special about that."</p><p>Natalia considers him, eyes bright and face open. He wants to tell her all of his secrets, suddenly. He wants to tell her about his curse and how lonely it is, to wander from place to place knowing he doesn't belong anywhere.</p><p>"You make the place what you want it to be," she says. "And then you won't be disappointed when it doesn't work out."</p><p>"There a reason you're talking to me?" Clint asks. He tries to keep the annoyance out of his tone and starts repacking his things, fingers reaching under the pew for his quiver. He doesn’t like games. "No offence, ma'am. I have somewhere to be."</p><p>His hand comes up empty. He frowns and looks down, at his feet, but the quiver isn't there either. His heart slams into his chest and he thinks, <em> please not again</em>, and then Natalia twirls an arrow between her fingers, her smile bordering on venomous.</p><p>"I think you know," she says softly. "I <em> am </em> sorry."</p><p>Clint sighs. There's not much else he can do.</p><p>-</p><p>Dying in a cathedral is a new one, even for Clint. He wakes slumped over in the pew, the blood on the collar of his shirt still fresh. Natalia hadn't flinched when she had driven the arrow into the side of his neck with just enough force to sever an artery. It had happened quickly, though she had still had enough time to steal his water flask and disappear into the night. He's not exactly mad, just annoyed and a little bit suspicious. If she had heard the rumours, then fine. But if she knew something else, if she knew something he <em> didn't, </em>then he needed to find her.</p><p>Clint stands and twists his neck, feeling the last of his muscles pull back together in the painful way he's used to. It never gets easier, only quicker. Sometimes he wonders if one day he won't heal, if the wound will stick and he'll finally die like he was supposed to. It's not a bad thought to have. Sometimes, he wishes it would happen sooner.</p><p>He makes it to a tavern and sits his weary body down. There's not many people out and he's not entirely sure what he orders when he gestures vaguely at the bottles that line the wall, but a tall mug is set in front of him and the liquid inside burns all the way down. He keeps one eye on the door and one hand on his bow, and as the night ticks away in seconds he can't count he finds himself surprisingly drowsy.</p><p>"Avez-vous besoin d'aide pour quelque chose?"</p><p>Clint squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his fingers around his bow. "Don't speak French."</p><p>"Are you okay?" The man repeats.</p><p>"Dead on my feet," he says wryly. "Have you seen a woman with red hair around here?"</p><p>"Red hair is devil." The man glances around nervously and Clint rolls his eyes, gulping the last mouthful of his drink. "I see her on horse."</p><p>"Great," Clint mutters. He's spent the last half of his life walking everywhere but he's no match against a horse. "Thanks."</p><p>He has nothing to pay with and no will to anyway. He's up and left before the owner can flag him down, back out into the night sooner than he had wanted. The man follows him out and Clint automatically tenses, reaches for an arrow and has his bow pointed at the man's face before they've even made it out to the roadside.</p><p>"Who are you?" he growls. His hands remain steady as the man lifts his own hands in surrender, but Clint's not about to trust a stranger so soon after his last mistake. Natalia left a mark, even though he can't see it anymore.</p><p>"Pietro," the man says. "I, uh—Don't shoot me."</p><p>"Give me one good reason. I don't like being followed."</p><p>"I help you find witch?" Pietro shakes his head, looking stricken. "<em>Woman</em>. I mean woman."</p><p>"Yea, sure," Clint mutters. "I'm not looking for her, anyway."</p><p>"I think you are," Pietro says. "She is beautiful."</p><p>Natalia <em> is </em> beautiful, but she's also deadly. Clint isn't completely sold on the idea that she isn't actually a witch; he's seen people accused for less than stabbing someone in the neck. The wound site still throbs and he reaches for it automatically, fingers grazing flesh that's perfectly untouched.</p><p>"Beautiful women aren't always beautiful," Clint tells him. He kind of wants to put an arrow through Natalia's neck, now, if only so that they're even. "Doesn't matter. I'm not looking for her."</p><p>"Fine." Pietro shrugs and lowers his hands. "I come with you."</p><p>Clint stares at him. "What part of 'I don't like being followed' do —"</p><p>"I have sister," Pietro says. "We are same. Born together."</p><p>"That's unnatural."</p><p>Pietro frowns and kicks his boot in the dirt, looking resigned. It's not the first time that Clint's heard of two babies born at the same time before; if he thinks hard enough, his earliest memory is watching his mother give birth to two girls, one so small her lungs only kept her alive for half a day, the other big enough to survive until her skin blistered with illness. His father had buried them without telling anyone that they had even been born. Sometimes, Clint wonders if he's being forced to live the lives they lost.</p><p>"We are normal," Pietro says eventually. "Wanda is kind. I want to... take her home."</p><p>"Where are you from?" Clint asks, and finally lowers his bow. If Pietro wants to kill him it'll just be another mark on the tally, anyway. "How do you speak English?"</p><p>It's not his most fluent moment. He's never been lucky enough to travel as far as France, let alone learn how to speak the language. There are people who are more privileged than him, though, people who sail the oceans and find a new place to call home for a little while. Pietro and his unfamiliar accent all equals a type of person that Clint's unfamiliar with, and it puts him on edge, just a little, to maybe not be the smartest man in the room.</p><p>Pietro's smile is easy. "You would not know it."</p><p>"The English then?"</p><p>"I was taught." And it really is as simple as that: Pietro has a means to learn new things. The only thing Clint ever learnt was to shoot straight and cut wheat, and so far only one of those things has helped him since he left his old life behind. "I can teach you French."</p><p>"What's in it for you?" Clint says.</p><p>"Adventure," Pietro replies. "Change. Fun?"</p><p>Clint huffs and puts his arrow back in the quiver, considering his options. Pietro could help, both in finding Natalia and hunting along the way, and even though he's not one for company it's tempting. Having someone to talk to might not be so bad. He just needs to avoid dying in his presence or otherwise he’ll leave, just like everyone else.</p><p>"Fine," Clint agrees. "But I have rules."</p><p>"Fantastique!" Pietro grins and gestures for Clint to continue walking, falling into step easily beside him. "I saw her leave. The horse was <em> fast</em>."</p><p>"Only so far a woman can go on her own before someone stops her," Clint mutters. "You don't have a horse?"</p><p>Pietro shrugs one shoulder. "I might."</p><p>Clint allows himself the distraction for the sole fact that it might get him better transport than his own two feet. Pietro leads, winding them down back streets and along freshly made paths to a house made of the same stone as the cathedral. Clint waits outside, feeling more than a little lost and desperately trying to cling to whatever control he has left. If he had stayed in Paris then none of this might have happened, though he's not sure which he would prefer: to have not died or to still be wandering aimlessly, no real purpose to his movements except to get away from a past that still clings to him.</p><p>Pietro has <em> horses</em>. The barn is made from stone, too, and the animals are all well-fed, even more so than the little boy he had left behind in Paris. His hollow face had known more pain than the horse that Clint is given. He strokes a hand down it's strong neck and tries not to think about how he'll outlive all of them.</p><p>"This is fast horse," Pietro is telling him, straw between his lips looking as starkly out of place as Clint feels. "She will take you wherever you want."</p><p>Clint shakes his head. "I have no money."</p><p>"We're not asking you to pay." The woman who leads Pietro's horse out of the stable is exactly as he had described her: the same as him. The only distinguishing difference is her hair, but her eyes are kind and she looks like she'd be able to give Clint a lesson or two in horse etiquette. "Take the horse."</p><p>He accepts the reins and checks his girth, keeping one eye on Wanda as she circles him. "What?"</p><p>"Nothing," she answers primly. "Just bring my brother back, okay."</p><p>Pietro rolls his eyes. "What is worst that can happen?"</p><p>Wanda's English is heavily accented, even more so than Pietro's voice, and yet Clint still can't place it. He doesn't know much of the world but he's never heard anything sound quite like it, except—</p><p>"Where are you from?" He asks again, this time directing his question to Wanda. "I've heard that accent before."</p><p>"I doubt it," she replies. "Sokovia. Between here and Kievan Rus'."</p><p>"What's left of Kievan Rus'," Pietro laughs. "Sister, let us leave."</p><p>Sokovia sounds like the kind of place Natalia would come from, even if he doesn't actually know anything about the country. Her accent had been similar, though hidden behind both her French and English; he's not entirely sure he's known of anyone being able to change their voice like that before. He thinks back to the cathedral and draws a blank, his memory fizzing out somewhere around the time she killed him.</p><p>"What happened to Kievan Rus'?" He swings himself up into the saddle and adjusts his quiver on his back. The horse shifts under his weight and he shushes it, one hand curling into the mane. Riding horses is something he knows. It's something from before that has stayed exactly the same.</p><p>"The invasion is over," Wanda tells him solemnly. "We are unsure of the outcome."</p><p>"Death and death," Pietro lists, mounting his own horse. "More death. Laisse nous partir, Wanda."</p><p>"Your horse is Alba," Wanda tells him. "She bites."</p><p>"Course she does. This day has been—"</p><p>"Insolite." Pietro rolls his eyes and turns his horse out of the barn. Alba follows naturally and Clint turns back to see Wanda's silhouette, illuminated by candlelight in the doorway. She lifts a hand to wave and he waves back, and then he's too far away to see whether she stays there or not. Alba plods along and Pietro grins over his shoulder. "See! Fun."</p><p>Clint's not so sure. He's not so sure how he got here, on the back of a horse with a kid he's only just met. He's not sure how Natalia knew to find him or how she knew to kill him, and he's not so sure why he's suddenly so hell-bent on finding her. She was just a woman, and maybe she just wanted to stab someone and he was the closest person around. <em> Maybe</em>. His life consists of too many maybes.</p><p>The horse is the only good thing to happen to him all week, if not all year. He's not cared much for the state of the world before now but there's something exciting in knowing about another country's demise before most others. He doesn't ask how Pietro and Wanda and all of their strangeness knew about it; maybe the mail from Sokovia is a little more detailed than what they used to receive in Kiddington.</p><p>The world <em> is </em> changing. He can feel it, how they're all steadily chugging along towards something bigger and better and brighter. Clint's not sure how long his curse will last but hopes that he'll at least see something good come from it, if he's forced to live that long. There's been enough pain and fighting; there's been more bloodshed than he had ever imagined as a boy, back when he was naive enough to think that his father would ever leave him enough to make a name for himself.</p><p>"What do you do?" Pietro asks. "You have bow. Do you shoot?</p><p>"Nothing," Clint replies. "I learnt to shoot when I was young. Only good thing I ever learnt."</p><p>"Have you been to battle? You are old enough."</p><p>The battle was what had killed him. Fighting in his father's honour, rushing towards an enemy he didn't even understand. Still <em> doesn't </em> understand, if anyone was to ask. They had been ill-prepared, so that by the time the axe hit him he wasn't the first to go. Barney had abandoned him—his <em> brother </em> had abandoned him—and then his body had woken up, brand new, surrounded by corpses.</p><p>Sometimes, he remembers every detail of it: the mud beneath his feet, the sharp tang of blood in the air, the cold that had seeped into his bones and stayed there for years. It's not as simple as saying he's <em> been to battle </em>, because he's been to battle and not come back, even though his body is still moving and breathing and living away from it all.</p><p>He shakes his head. "I was a farmer."</p><p>Close enough to the truth. Pietro doesn't notice the inflection in his voice, and the horses trot along. They have nothing working in their favour and Clint knows, logically, that the odds of finding Natalia are slim. She could have gone in fifty different directions and he'll never know exactly which path she took. It's frustrating, but it gives him something to work towards. He might find her before he dies for real, and then at least he can die happy.</p><p>If he ever dies. The thought settles like a pit in his stomach and Alba shakes her head, as though she can feel it too. Clint closes his eyes and sees Natalia's face, blurring at the edges until it becomes the blonde girl from his nightmares. Pietro says something but he can't understand it.</p><p>Everything around him blurs, too.</p><p>-</p><p>They spend a month travelling through the top of France, asking at each village whether they've seen a woman with red hair pass through on horseback. Pietro grows on Clint the way that a callus once might have; unwanted, but needed. Most times they're met with blank stares and suspicion, and they rarely stay in one place for long. It feels like they're chasing a dream and the more time that passes the more Clint believes that whatever happened in Amiens was a hallucination. Pietro doesn't say it but he can see it on his face. Their adventure wears thin, the fun that Pietro had hoped for dwindling as the days grow colder.</p><p>For the most part they stay out of trouble on the trails. It's hard to remain optimistic when the temperature breaches freezing and the villagers warily watch their every move. He loses a glove between France and the Roman Empire to a group of bandits who don't speak any of the languages Pietro knows, but he considers it a win when faced with the alternative. He can afford a sword against his throat; Pietro cannot, and he hears Wanda's plea echoing in his ears every time their horses falter.</p><p>Pietro tells him about her. She's younger than him, the surprise that no one saw coming, and she continues to surprise everyone around her the older she gets. He tells Clint how he wants her to be the one to take over the estate when their parents pass, and it's such a wild, thrilling idea, to have a woman managing an estate, that Clint finds himself swept up in it all. Pietro doesn't want the responsibility and France has grown on him, anyway. Wanda would thrive in Sokovia, he tells Clint. If she had been born first, as him, then there would be no debate about it whatsoever.</p><p>He loves her in the kind of sibling way that is foreign to Clint, because Barney had never been anything other than someone to outsmart, outrun. The girls had disappeared before he could even imprint the image of their faces in his memory. So when Pietro tells him about Wanda Clint learns something new again: love is strong enough to shake foundations if you find it in the right person.</p><p>They reach the Roman Empire around the same time that the weather starts to change, with no sight of Natalia and no real lead to take them anywhere. They ride into the Kingdom of Italy and spend a night at Milan, and Pietro sleeps an entire day away. Clint doesn't sleep. He's afraid that when he dreams he'll see her, now, taunting him with her eyes that are so familiar he can feel the answer on the tip of his tongue.</p><p>When Pietro wakes, there's just enough light left for them to find something warm to eat. "This is first meal you have not pulled out of your ass."</p><p>Clint knows enough French now to say, "Va au diable."</p><p>He thinks that he could even call him a friend now. He hasn't minded the company, has even enjoyed having someone to tease and mess with to make the days pass more quickly. Pietro pushes back, always bringing up Natalia like saying her name will conjure her in front of them, and it doesn't annoy him like it once used to. Friendship is rare for him and Pietro gives it out like extra change.</p><p>"Where will we go next?" Pietro asks. He sips his ale and turns his nose up, used to French wine and honey. "Maybe she <em> is </em> a witch. We can't find her."</p><p>"Keep your voice down," Clint hisses. They haven't come across anyone who's particularly worried that they're witch-hunting, though he's not about to test his luck in yet another foreign country. "She's not. She could be anywhere."</p><p>"Why you need to find her so much? What did she do?"</p><p>
  <em> Killed me. Stabbed me in the neck with my own arrow and then left me to bleed out in a cathedral. God probably has it out for me now and I'll be damned for another eternity. </em>
</p><p>"Nothing," he says gruffly. "She might know something, is all."</p><p>"Awful lot of effort," Pietro comments. Clint doesn't give the thought another second and picks up a chicken wing. The meat is soft, the beer good. It's the best thing he's eaten in months. "Maybe you could ask me."</p><p>"No," Clint says immediately. "You won't understand."</p><p>"I might—"</p><p>"No." He levels Pietro with a glare and only feels a little bad when he ducks his head in embarrassment. "You can go, if you want to."</p><p>"And leave you with Alba? She will eat you."</p><p>Alba is a good horse. She's no King, but Clint's convinced that no horse will ever match the giant brute his father had working the fields. King was stubborn and beautiful and the first thing Clint learnt to care for. Alba takes her time with him; King had thrown him into it headfirst, hooves flying.</p><p>"No," Clint repeats. "Eat your meal. You need to write your sister."</p><p>Pietro rolls his eyes and breaks off a hunk of brown bread. "She can't write back. We leave too soon."</p><p>"Write her. Be glad you <em> can </em>write."</p><p>They eat the rest of their meal in silence. By the time they make it back to their room the moon is hung low in the sky and the air has already begun to warm. Clint closes his eyes and leaves Pietro by the candlelight, willing away the images of knives and bloodied wrists that swim in his subconscious. He still doesn't know what it means and that's what frustrates him the most. No matter how hard he tries to ignore it the girl comes back, features caught somewhere between pain and relief.</p><p>When he wakes Pietro is gone. Clint finds his unfinished letter and heads down to the stables, checking that both Alba and Pietro's horse are still there. They are, and his heart pounds as he rounds the corner; <em> human</em>, it tells him. <em> You're still only human</em>.</p><p>He finds Pietro slumped against the far wall of the stable. There's a pitchfork jutting out of his middle and a blood trail down his chin, and his eyes look right through Clint and out the door, seeing something that's waiting for him on the other side. Clint crouches beside him, confused and in shock. His bow is still in the room, his back exposed to the cool night air. Everything in him screams to run.</p><p>"Now Wanda is first," Pietro gasps. Clint looks on in pity as the blood bubbles around his lips. "Make sure she gets estate."</p><p>Clint doesn't have that kind of power, but he nods anyway. "Who did this?"</p><p>"They were in room, looking for money. I let them take it. And then—"</p><p>There's a rattle in his chest and something that could be a memory slams into Clint's mind. <em> Half a sob choked back, hands pressed into mud and eyes fixed on the ground. Something cold against the back of his neck, and then— </em></p><p>"They want to kill you. I chase them. They kill me, instead."</p><p>Clint lets himself sit down beside Pietro, shoulders knocking together. "I can't die."</p><p>Pietro laughs. It sounds like the end. "I hope you find her."</p><p>He can't bear the thought of having to face Wanda. He's not sure that he ever will, though he thinks that he at least owes it to Pietro to try and find her back in Amiens. She'll get the estate, just like Pietro wanted. Running after petty thieves seems like the kind of thing a person does on purpose, and Clint wonders if this was his plan all along. With him gone, Wanda is free.</p><p>"I can't die," Clint whispers. "Natalia killed me. She cut my vein with an arrow. I let her. I can't die. There's something wrong with me."</p><p>Pietro can, and he goes slowly. Clint sits with him for hours, just in case something happens and he wakes, gasping, like Clint had in the middle of an English field. He doesn't.</p><p>It's harder to wash the blood from his hands than he thought it would be.</p><p>-</p><p>Clint's gone before they can find the body, taking Alba and Pietro's letter and hightailing it towards Venice before he can be falsely accused of whatever happened in the barn. He brings the other horse with him and trades the second saddle to a farmer in Padua in exchange for bread and smoked ham. He's not sure if the food is an improvement in his life or not; he ignores it for days until his hunger beats out his pity, and he realises that he misses Pietro more than he would have expected. He knew him for too long, and yet the time that passed doesn't really feel like it was that long at all.</p><p>There's a reason he doesn't let people get close to him anymore. It's a lonely way to live, but it beats the alternative. Pietro is the first one that he cares about enough to let it bother him.</p><p>He gives up on the idea of finding Natalia. He eventually sells Pietro's horse too and uses the money to buy himself a little room on the outskirts of Treviso, keeping to himself and letting Alba rest her legs after months of pointless walking. He works himself to the bone and builds a repertoire as a marksman, and it's honest enough that when he closes his eyes he doesn't dream at all. It's one small relief in a field of continuation; the day begins, he works, and it ends the same way, shrouded in the kind of deep numbness that's swallowed him whole on more than one occasion.</p><p>There's no indication that time has passed except for the sprouting of produce in the fields around him. Time has never meant much to him anyway, and between cutting wheat and shooting birds he practises French to Alba, watches the way her ears flicker whenever he mentions Pietro's name. The people he left behind weigh heavily on Clint's shoulders until he feels that he can't take the force of it anymore, and then he keeps working, keeps the cycle moving before he collapses in on himself.</p><p>It's a balmy night when he returns home to find the door ajar. His room is more than the mud huts he had helped his father build back in Kiddington but everything man-made can be broken, and it takes only a second for him to make up his mind and draw an arrow out of his quiver. He's learnt his lesson, now, and he's not about to be fooled again.</p><p>Clint toes the door open. A knife cracks open the back of his skull, and the world fades to black.</p><p>-</p><p>When he wakes this time, he has a headache that he feels right down to his toes and the metallic taste of blood caught in the back of his throat. He coughs and pushes himself onto his hands and knees, squeezing his eyes shut against the faint glow of a candle. He hadn't lit a candle before he left, so why—</p><p>Clint's on his feet in a second, swaying but ready to fight as the memory of the attack pushes its way to the forefront of his mind. He's not met with much force.</p><p>Instead, he sees the girl from his nightmare.</p><p>"Privet!" She says, and Clint stumbles backwards, trying to put some distance between them in the small room. She frowns and looks behind her, saying something in another language that Clint has never heard before. He reaches behind him for the door and touches a wall, realises that she moved him when he was coming back to life, and feels the panic set in.</p><p>"Who are you?" He asks. "I've seen you before."</p><p>"Yelena doesn't know much English." He recognises the voice that speaks from a dark corner of the room and feels all of the anger that he has ignored since Milan return in full force. "She's new."</p><p>"<em>You</em>," he hisses. "Care to explain yourself."</p><p>Natalia emerges from the shadows like Pietro had imagined her; hair just as fierce as Clint remembers, eyes steely and smile coy. And yet despite his anger, despite all of the frustration and confusion that has led him to chase her halfway around the world, she still takes his breath away, still makes his heart race in a way that he doesn't really understand. He wants to stay angry. Instead, he lowers his raised fists and lets her walk right up to his face.</p><p>"I think you know, Clint."</p><p>He deflates a little, casting his eyes over her shoulder to watch the blonde girl—Yelena, his mind supplies— pick up a stone he's been using to sharpen his arrows and toss it from hand to hand.</p><p>"That's mine," he says pointedly. "If you're going to kill me, you can at least respect my space."</p><p>Natalia smirks. "She can't understand you."</p><p>"Translate then," he spits. "Look, woman. I'm not happy with you."</p><p>"Because I killed you?"</p><p>"Because you killed me <em> twice</em>." He scratches absently at the spot on the back of his head and is relieved to feel that the hair has already grown back. "Both times hurt, just so you know."</p><p>"I killed you once," Natalia corrects, voice lifting in laughter. "Yelena was the one to put the knife through your head."</p><p>Clint eyes her again, trying to get a read on her. "Then I'm not happy with her either."</p><p>"You are same," Yelena says loudly, then waves her hands as though she can pull more words from thin air. "Natalia, skazhi yemu."</p><p>"I found Yelena after Kievan Rus' fell," Natalia explains idly. "She was the one who told me about you. I think you've seen her before, too."</p><p>"Yes," he says cautiously. "What does it mean?"</p><p>"I don't know," Natalia admits, nose crinkled in annoyance. "At the very least it means that we're all the same. Have you caught on yet?"</p><p>Clint blinks, feels something like relief wash over him. If he's not the only one, then maybe it's not a curse. Maybe it's something that none of them understand, but maybe that means that it's not so bad then. Maybe—</p><p>"You can't die." It feels obvious, now that he says it. Natalia knew in the cathedral and needed to see it for herself, though he thinks that she could have just asked instead of killing him. He understands the feeling: proof is the only thing stopping him from going insane. "When was the... the first time?"</p><p>Natalia's face hardens. He's seen barbaric men look less terrifying than she does in that moment. "It's rude to ask a lady how old she is."</p><p>"You saw me die," Yelena announces. She walks with the confidence of a girl who knows she is untouchable, all swagger and childlike wonder. She's young. Younger than Clint would have expected. "I saw you."</p><p>"You..." He trails off, unsure how he's supposed to admit to her that he's watched her death more times than he can count. Something about it had always unsettled him. "Yes, I did."</p><p>Yelena holds out her wrist, and he hesitantly peeks at the jagged scar that runs all the way up to her elbow. He's seen her do it enough times now that he's not expecting the way his stomach still twists in a strange mixture of discomfort and fear.</p><p>''Where?" Yelena asks him. "I don't see."</p><p>His own scar is ugly, a haphazard collection of vertical lines that show exactly how many times he was struck before his opponent was apparently content that he was dead. He pulls his shirt open anyway, lets her look and touch like she's giving him an examination. Natalia keeps her eyes on his face and he stares right back, waiting for her to do something.</p><p>"It was an axe," he says to Yelena, unsure that she'll even understand what he's trying to tell her. Maybe he's really telling Natalia instead, but either way it's a story he's never shared before. "It was in battle. I wasn't fast enough."</p><p>"Yelena killed herself," Natalia says. "The alternative wasn't much better. Kievan Rus' fell and she decided to fall with it."</p><p>Clint's face is tired, he knows. "Noble."</p><p>"Some would say idiotic." Natalia moves sharply and pulls Yelena's hand away from his skin, and he quickly refastens the buttons on his shirt. "Podoydi syuda."</p><p>Yelena rolls her eyes. "Show him yours."</p><p>"It's only fair," he reasons at the look on Natalia's face. She shakes her head sharply and drags Yelena by her arm towards the bed, sitting her down on the edge of it. "We showed ours."</p><p>"No," Natalia says with the kind of tone that demands to be listened to. She gestures at Yelena and the bed. "Do you mind?"</p><p>"No," he says. "Not at all."</p><p>Yelena pulls herself into a ball and Natalia rubs her back as she drifts to sleep. It takes him by surprise to see the two so clearly comfortable with one another that they <em> allow </em>comfort at all. He lets himself slide down against the wall and ignores the blood stain opposite him, in the doorway. He's more used to the sight of it than he is his own face.</p><p>Natalia joins him a moment later, legs stretching out to reveal trousers beneath her skirt. "Yelena is a child. She should have just died instead of... this."</p><p>"This," Clint echoes. "Hell, I think. Well, it's my best guess."</p><p>"Hell would be simpler." Natalia's head hits the wall and stays there. Her cheeks are pale and smooth and his fingers itch in a moment of pure insanity to touch her. Whatever killed her didn't leave an obvious mark. "How long has it been for you?"</p><p>He's not sure, but it's not as easy as saying that. It's five years, most likely, though it could be ten; it could be any number of years and he would accept it, because half of them he's forgotten out of pure stubbornness. His parents dying had been the last thing tying him to Kiddington, and yet he had still stayed there before he realised that suffering was going to taste the same no matter where he lived.</p><p>He shrugs. "A while."</p><p>"That doesn't help me at all."</p><p>It's silent for a moment, save for the sound of Yelena's steady breathing and the insects that take up permanent residence outside of his room. Natalia keeps her eyes closed and sighs, and it feels like the kind of sigh that's been carried around for decades.</p><p>"How many more?" He asks eventually.</p><p>"It's only us," she says softly. "There was... There was one more, before. But she died and didn't wake up again."</p><p>"She died?" He doesn't mean to sound excited and figures he deserves the elbow that she drives sharply into his ribs. "Sorry. But if it's a possibility."</p><p>"She saw me, and I saw Yelena," Natalia explains. "But I never saw you."</p><p>"I saw Yelena, too," he frowns. "I watched her... do that. To herself."</p><p>"I found her in Kievan Rus' and she told me that she dreamt of you. That led me to Amiens and then I had to see for myself, if it was all connected."</p><p>Clint scoffs. "And if it wasn't?"</p><p>"I've killed before, Clint." She turns her head to look at him and smiles, all thorns and poison. "You wouldn't have made a difference."</p><p>"So the three of us can't die." He ignores her comment in favour of extracting as much information as he can from her. "Any idea why?"</p><p>"Something went wrong, I assume." When she shifts her shoulder against him it warms him right down to his toes, and he suddenly can't remember the last time someone touched him without being afraid that he'd curse them. "Maria had been alive for so long that when she did die, she was ready. But it... Well, it wasn't easy."</p><p>"There's hope, at least. I don't want to live forever, Natalia."</p><p>"There's a lot of good you can do," she murmurs, glancing at Yelena's still form. "No use in wasting time. Yelena and I are going back to Kievan Rus' to see how we can help. A lot of people are suffering."</p><p>"And you came to Italy just to kill me again?" Clint laughs. "I was looking for you too, you know."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>He falters, no longer sure why he ever <em> was </em>really looking for her. He had told Pietro that it was because he had wanted answers, but maybe he had just wanted to know her a little better. There's something about Natalia and the way that she had thrown herself into his life that makes electricity crackle in his veins. She's something new, something different; someone that can understand who he is and offer no judgement because she's exactly the same.</p><p>"To talk to you," he settles on. "I wanted to ask you what you knew."</p><p>"Was it what you expected?" She asks. The candlelight flickers as the flame reaches the end of the wick and then the room is plunged into darkness. Natalia's fingers brush his hand as she stands up and collects her hair into the back of her cloak. "Or am I still a mystery?"</p><p>"Still a mystery," he says immediately. "But my whole life is a mystery. Thought you might have had some more answers, though."</p><p>"I've been here for a while now," she says softly. "Trust me. I wish I knew."</p><p>Clint watches her silhouette move around the room, subconsciously tidying his things as she goes. She hesitates by the bed and he wonders if she'll ask. It doesn't matter if she does because he'll say yes regardless. He's never wanted to say yes to someone more than this moment.</p><p>Natalia climbs over Yelena and settles herself down on the other side. The breeze through the window is cool enough to dry the sweat that's collected on Clint's temples, though he still goes over to the wash tub to try and get some of the blood out of his hair. He's not sure what happens next but he figures if he jumps on Alba now he'll be out of Treviso before they wake.</p><p>"Come with us," Natalia says, as though she can read his mind. He looks at her and sees her eyes, bright against the darkness, watching him from over Yelena's shoulder. "The three of us might make a good team."</p><p>If it's all been leading to this offer then Clint knows that he's about to let her down. It's not that he doesn't want to go with them and find out more about what went wrong, but he doesn't want to form any more attachments if things still have the possibility of <em> going </em> wrong. He barely knows Natalia and she's already sucked him in with a charm that he knows will come back to sting him. He wants to, he really does. Sometimes it's easier to walk away.</p><p>"I'm happy on my own," he lies, and hopes that she can't tell. "I guess one day we might find each other again, depending on how long this lasts. I'm not sure I can trust you, Natalia. You killed me twice."</p><p>"Once," she says, lips turned up in a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Smart move, Mr..."</p><p>"Barton." He allows her this because it hopefully won't matter in a week. He'll be gone and they will too, and if they ever cross paths again he might be quicker at drawing a weapon.</p><p>"Well, Mr Barton, the offer will stand for all eternity if you ever change your mind."</p><p>He smiles too and ignores the voice that tells him he could be making a mistake. The world is big and only growing bigger; he can find a cosy corner for himself and wait out his days for his own Maria moment, content in his aloneness. It's only been one and a half seasons since Wanda was telling him about Kievan Rus' and his life has <em> technically </em> already changed again.</p><p>"Thanks," he says with meaning. He collects his bow from where it's been left in the doorframe and gives them one last wave before he leaves. It's not as hard as he thinks it should be. "Bye, Natalia."</p><p>It might be the last time he ever sees her, and he's okay with that. Natalia looks at him like it won't be. And surprisingly, he's okay with that too.</p><p>-</p><p>Years pass. Clint's not entirely sure exactly how long, just that it <em> is </em> years. Alba died long ago and his new horse isn't so new anymore; her muzzle greys and he retires her to a pasture full of clover, sneaking her carrots from the market whenever he ventures into the village. She's a good horse, a strong horse; she carried him all the way from Scotland back to England, so he thinks that he at least owes her an extra treat here or there. She's no Alba, and she's no King, but by now the names are fading.</p><p>He'd gone back to France, once, and Wanda had hugged him after he told her about Pietro. She had cut down all of the trees on the estate with just her pain to fuel her, and that had been long before Clint had rolled in. It's been years, and he's not even sure that Wanda is still alive anymore. He’s moved around so much since then that he can’t remember what Amiens even looks like now.</p><p>He finally lives on his own, secluded like he wanted, away from the Sheriff and all of the nosy neighbours that don't want anything to do with him. He doesn't blame them because they only believe what the Sheriff tells them, and he <em> was </em>the one to declare Clint unable to own any land. So he moves around, always coming back to check on the horse, always bringing an extra carrot in his back pocket.</p><p>The thing about living forever—or at least, for <em> most </em>of forever—is that it doesn't really matter what he does in the end. Natalia was right; he still thinks about her sometimes and wonders what her and Yelena could possibly be up to, but he tries not to let the thought linger. She was right, and if he's sentenced to death for stealing then so be it: he'll just come back and do it again.</p><p>Which is how he winds up in Nottingham more often than not, his fingers light as feathers as he slips them into the pockets of the wealthy. He knows what it's like to be poor and hungry. He knows what it's like to be unable to ask for help, too, which is why he never makes anyone do anything other than invite him in for tea. He drinks, hands them coins under the table and calls it a day.</p><p>Yet the days drag on; Clint steals, Clint drinks, Clint takes a carrot home for his horse. He sleeps and doesn't dream of either woman, though there's a new fear that he might see someone else entirely. He goes into the forest and shoots enough game to last him all winter, and instead of smoking it himself he gives it away with jewels tucked into the carcasses. The village flourishes, the Sheriff has his suspicions, and Clint doesn't die once.</p><p>It's nice, but it's just nice. And then Natalia marches back into his life on the back of the Black Death, and Clint's carefully constructed life crumbles before his eyes.</p><p>-</p><p>Nottingham is an easy place to blend in, even in the middle of a plague. Clint keeps himself busy by supplying game to the families that are confined to their houses, wondering idly what would happen if <em> he </em>was to catch the disease that has already wiped out half of the village's poor. When Natalia knocks on his door looking close to death he gets his answer.</p><p>"I shouldn't let you in."</p><p>Her glare is still sharp enough to cut glass. "You will, before I infect anyone else."</p><p>He grumbles as he quickly lets her in, ushering her shivering form over to the table so that she can sit by the fire. Her skin is pale and shiny with sweat, her neck covered in large bumps that look painful to touch. This is the first time he's seen the disease up close and it makes his stomach churn.</p><p>"How'd this happen?" He asks. He pours her warm water from the pot above the fire and mixes in some honey the way he's seen women do for their children. "Do you think you'll die from it?"</p><p>"Of course I'll die," Natalia snaps. "I've been waiting to die all week."</p><p>"So you thought the best thing to do would be to find me?" Clint sits opposite her and watches her hands tremble as she grips her mug. "And what? Infect me too?"</p><p>"No," she says croakily. "I wanted to die where I felt safe. I don't know how long this will take to come back from."</p><p>Clint looks at her and doesn't understand how she can feel safe around him when she's only met him twice. Maybe she's hallucinating from the fever and talking nonsense, or maybe she actually <em> does </em>trust him enough to literally die in his home. He's not sure that he would feel the same way, but he humours her.</p><p>"Okay. Anything I can do?"</p><p>Natalia doesn't want to accept his help, despite having dragged her decaying body halfway across the countryside to find him. He doesn't even ask her how she found him, sure that he'll never actually understand anything of what happens in his life. He watches her vomit up the water and then doesn't give her a choice when he helps her to his bed.</p><p>"Yelena?" He wipes sweaty hair away from her temples and tries to wrap her shivering body in a thin blanket. She fights him every step of the way and he gives up after the third elbow to his chin.</p><p>"I left her behind," Natalia tells him, eyes squeezed shut against the light. "It's safer for her."</p><p>"Right," he mutters. He pulls the chair over beside the bed and sits there watching her chest rise and fall. "You need to start sending a forewarning."</p><p>"You would ignore it," she says. "Besides, I thought one hundred years was enough time for you to get over your tantrum."</p><p>"What?" Clint chokes. He shakes her shoulder until she's forced to open her eyes and glare at him again, though he can see that she's fading in the edges of her scowl. "One <em> hundred </em> years?"</p><p>"Yes," she breathes. It seems to take all of her energy to say anything more than that, so he lets her rest and sits back in his chair, heart pounding.</p><p>There had been many more horses after Alba. There had been one hundred years worth of horses, and Wanda was most certainly dead by now, finally able to reunite with her brother. Clint blinks the moisture from his eyes and doesn't panic. He lost one hundred years. He knew that time had passed, but not like this.</p><p>He sits there for the rest of the night, unable to fathom moving now that his world has been tipped on its head. It makes sense, and he has steadfastly been ignoring every sign that things were changing drastically around him. It's been one hundred years, and Clint hasn't died once. It feels like the kind of victory worth celebrating but he can't find it in him to care.</p><p>Natalia dies sometime in the early morning. It's a horrible way to go, and Clint watches the blackened fingers of her left hand regain colour until she looks almost alive again. It does take longer, too, longer than any time that he's ever had something pointy stabbed into him. When she finally comes to, gasping on lungs that remember choking only hours before, he's ready with a meal that will hopefully keep her energy up.</p><p>"Thank you," she says when her voice returns. "That was one of the worst."</p><p>"How many times?" Clint asks.</p><p>Natalia sips plain water this time, watching him move around the fireplace over the top of her mug. "That was ninety-eight."</p><p>She's either much older than him or prone to life-threatening injuries, and he's honestly not sure which one would be more true. He gives her bread and honey and a little smoked fish on the side, in case she's up to it, then sits back beside her to eat his own meal.</p><p>She gives him less than a minute. "You were surprised to know that so much time has passed."</p><p>"Yea," he shrugs. "It's not something that I keep track of."</p><p>"This is how it is now, Clint." Natalia licks excess honey off the fingers that had just been dead. All of her had just been dead and now she's here, sitting and talking to him. It's the first time he's ever seen anyone else come back to life and it doesn't make him feel any better. "Time steals a lot from us, but it also leaves us behind."</p><p>Over one hundred years since his parents, since <em> Barney </em>—</p><p>"I knew someone, and she's probably gone now. It doesn't feel as bad as I thought it would."</p><p>"It would have been better for her," Natalia says. "Better than it is for us. There's consolation in knowing that."</p><p>"I thought—it's foolish, but I thought she might even still be alive." He chews his own fish thoughtfully, thinks about how he's something like one hundred and thirty-seven years old now. Even Yelena is older, not that it really matters.</p><p>"Clint," Natalia starts, her face pulled down in concern. "How did you lose <em> that </em>much time?"</p><p>It's not like he means it. Some days it's easier to sink into a version of himself that doesn't have to worry about anything other than the next meal he puts on the table of a family that's worse off than he is. Some days he wakes up and goes to sleep in the same second; some days he thinks of throwing himself off a cliff to see if it'll change anything. He's not sure if she'll understand that feeling, but it's a feeling that he's been, apparently, carrying around for over one hundred years.</p><p>"I don't notice it," he says. "Not... not really."</p><p>Natalia looks down at the table and tears chunks off her piece of bread, moving the pieces around on the table. He's had one or two deaths that make his stomach ache for days afterwards and knows that it will be enough to make her stick around for a few days at least. He stands up to get her more water and feels her hand curl around his wrist as he goes.</p><p>"I ignored it at the beginning, too," she says softly. "There's only so long you can go before the reality of it all hits you in the face. There's no quick way out of this."</p><p>"I'm not ignoring it," he refutes stubbornly. "I work hard. I've always worked hard. The days blend into one when you have something to do."</p><p>"I tried to end it. Do you know how hard it is to look in the mirror and drive a sword through your stomach?"</p><p>Clint bites. "That how you died? Thought it might work the second time?"</p><p>Natalia lets his wrist drop and he misses the warmth. She's alive, even if she's not. "No. I didn't want to die. You didn't either. Look at what this does to you."</p><p>Clint sighs and feels a centuries worth of tears collect behind his eyes. One of them falls and trails like an icicle down his cheek, and he rushes to the fire to try and bring some warmth back into his body. He doesn't like the cold. He doesn't like what she's insinuating.</p><p>"We're not the same," he tells her. "I know you think that we are, but we're not. You and Yelena can do what you want without involving me. I've been fine for the last..."</p><p>His voice cracks around a sob, and then he's crying in earnest, hands clenched around her mug and shoulders shaking from the force. He hears her stand and then feels her arms wind around his waist, her hands coming up to rest against his chest. She presses her palm over his heart. It warms him up a little more.</p><p>"You don't have to be alone in this," she murmurs. "Clint, I know how terrifying it is. I've lived through more centuries than I care to remember, and some of them I <em> can't </em>remember. It's dark. It rarely gets brighter."</p><p>"Is this supposed to help?" He sniffles. Her chest against his back, her head resting between his shoulder blades. He grips her hands and silently begs her to stay.</p><p>"Yes," she whispers. "I'm here to help. Having someone else—someone who <em> understands </em>—it makes a difference. Eventually."</p><p>"Eventually," he repeats. "Until then?"</p><p>"I'm just a pain in your side." Natalia spins him around slowly so that she can meet his gaze, and all he sees is the God-honest truth on her face. "I don't want you to spend another one hundred years alone."</p><p>"Why? You don't even know me."</p><p>She smiles and this time it feels real. Her eyes shine, the curl of her lips a promise that he can't ignore. "It's never too late to make up for lost time."</p><p>-</p><p>Natalia stays. Clint had wanted to believe her but had prepared himself anyway, not letting anything settle until a week passed and she was still waking up in his bed. She stays, and Clint unlearns everything he thought that he knew about people in the wake of her kindness. She stays, so he does, too.</p><p>The plague shows no signs of disappearing, and they spend most of their time inside; Natalia making pillows out of the feathers he plucks from his game, and him preparing enough meat to feed half the village before winter. They work in silence, plucking and smoking, and venture out to share their wealth before the sun sets each day. The walk back is his favourite part, because if he's lucky enough to time it right the golden hue of the sun turns Natalia's hair golden, too.</p><p>"I made you this," Natalia says one night, when the candlelight paints a halo across her face. She holds out a pillow and he accepts it with a laugh, plumping it between his hands. "So you can hopefully sleep well tonight."</p><p>"I sleep well every night," he replies. The pillow joins his makeshift bed on the floor and he grins, throwing his hands out to show it off. "Look! The bed of Kings."</p><p>"You shouldn't have given me yours," Natalia chastises. She climbs onto his mattress anyway and starts braiding her hair over her shoulder, watching him with critical eyes. "We could share."</p><p>"You died in that thing," he reminds her. "You might give me your disease."</p><p>She rolls her eyes. "You already have one of my diseases."</p><p>"That doesn't sound good."</p><p>Natalia shakes her head and curls into a tight ball, pulling the thin blanket up to her chin. Clint blows the candle out and lets himself sink to the floor. It's not uncomfortable, but it's also not the worst place he's slept. The pillow makes his head feel like it's floating; he turns to thank her and finds her already asleep, so he closes his eyes too and dreams.</p><p>He's had this dream before. He's on his knees, hands in the mud. There's a crowd and he feels something painful build in the back of his throat. Somebody says something that he doesn't understand and a hand pushes between his shoulder blades roughly. He can't speak around the sob that claws its way past his teeth. He opens his eyes and sees a halo of red.</p><p>Natalia puts her hand on his cheek. "Are you okay?"</p><p>The candle has been re-lit. He swallows and scrubs at his eyes, trying to ground himself in the present. He's not sure if he saw her hair before or after he woke; if it was part of his dream then maybe she had been there, too, but the memory of it is still fresh enough that he feels the aftershocks of fear. He shudders and she helps him sit up, keeping her hand on his arm.</p><p>"Nightmare," he says eventually. "It was... strange."</p><p>"What happened?" She asks. "You were crying out."</p><p>"I think I was about to die," he says slowly. "But it wasn't me. I was someone else. I was <em> scared</em>."</p><p>Natalia rocks back on her heels and presses a hand against her mouth, teeth sinking into her knuckles. He vaguely remembers having a similar dream in the past, though when exactly it was he can't quite place.</p><p>"Please don't let it be another one," she whispers, then pushes herself forward so that they're almost nose to nose. "What else do you remember?"</p><p>"Nothing," he says honestly. "I didn't see a face. I was on the ground and it was muddy. That's... That's all I've got."</p><p>Natalia nods and purses her lips. "If it happens again, we need to know—"</p><p>"I know. I'll try to notice more next time. I've never felt fear like that before, and I watched a man swing an axe towards my chest."</p><p>She gets up and moves back to the bed, taking the candle with her. She sits it on the floor and tucks herself in again, and then she looks at him like she wants to ask him a question. It's not like her to look so self-conscious. He waits, watching the shadows from the flame dance on the roof.</p><p>"Sleep here." Her voice sounds like it reverberates off the walls. He's moving before she can even finish asking. "Please."</p><p>The bed is small. He lies behind her and lets her drape his arm over her waist. With her body against his the world feels infinitely warmer, and he clings to her like a moth to a flame, basking in it while she allows him this closeness.</p><p>"It will be okay, if it is someone new," he says into her hair. "We can find them, like you found Yelena. Like you found me."</p><p>He can hear the smile on her lips when she says, "Hopefully they won't be as stubborn as you."</p><p>She leaves the candle burning. He doesn't blame her, feeling shaken by the nightmare even in her presence. He doesn't want to scare her too. If it is somebody else destined to share their fate then he's sure that they can make it work. They're making it work now.</p><p>"Have your opinions of me changed?" He says. "Or am I still just the idiot who spent one hundred years wallowing?"</p><p>"Still an idiot," Natasha whispers. "But my opinion of you has always been the same. You're just trying to do good. That makes you worth something."</p><p>He blinks, swallows more tears. Pulls her close and says, "You're worth something, too, you know."</p><p>She doesn't answer. Her fingers curling around his tell him all he needs to know and more. </p><p>-</p><p>The next day he brings Natalia with him into the forest, sits her down on a log and shows her just how well he can shoot. No one else is about and the trees whistle with a breeze that ruffles the ends of her hair. She looks for the first time like herself and he likes it more than all of the other faces that she's worn around him. When he offers her the bow she takes it with steady hands and hits a bullseye on her first try.</p><p>"Some might think you'd done this before," he comments as he retrieves the arrow.</p><p>"Maybe once, in another life." She throws the comment over her shoulder as she saunters away, bow slung over her shoulder and hips swinging in a way that's positively deadly. "I've been many people, you know."</p><p>"I know," he calls after her. She disappears around the trunk of the Major Oak and he jogs to catch up. Natalia likes to play games, he's learnt, even if they're not very fun. "How many times?"</p><p>She grins. "Keep asking and I might just tell you."</p><p>Clint sighs and sits beside her against the base of the trunk. It's a huge tree, with branches that cover them from the warm sun. They could almost live there if they wanted to. He shakes his head, tries to stop himself from thinking of the two of them as a pair. Natalia left Yelena behind and he knows that she wants to go back for her.</p><p>"Yelena will think I'm really gone." She knows what he's thinking before he does half the time. "I told her I wouldn't be long."</p><p>"Didn't want her to get sick, too?" He asks.</p><p>"No. I didn't want her to be the one to deal with me if I did die. Illness is uncharted waters."</p><p>He doesn't often think about how she <em> had </em>died, in his bed; it doesn't feel remarkable enough to warrant much of his time. She had been asleep when it had happened, drifting off with lungs that were already repairing themselves before she had even stopped breathing. People want it to be like that, to just close their eyes and be done with everything without knowing. Clint's died both ways before and still isn't sure which one he prefers.</p><p>"Good to know that not even the plague can keep us down," he mutters. "Or an axe. Or a knife to the head, apparently."</p><p>"Or an arrow to the neck," she teases. "Maybe we need to be more creative."</p><p>Clint fiddles with the tip of his arrowhead, then picks his nails with it. He's thought of so many ways to die by now that he's not sure they would be able to come up with anything new. Natalia rests her head on his shoulder and watches his fingers pass the arrow between them.</p><p>"I wouldn't know where to begin," he says eventually. "When are you leaving?"</p><p>He's been avoiding the question for weeks now. The dream solidifies something that's greater than the two of them and pillows in Nottingham. It's a sign, or a warning, perhaps. He's never been good at listening to warnings. His eleven deaths are an attribute to that.</p><p>"I guess it was brave of me to assume that you would come with me," Natalia says. "You would get along with Yelena."</p><p>"It's not brave," Clint says. "It's human. I will come with you, if only to prove it."</p><p>Natalia takes the arrow from his grip and encases his hand with her own. "Is that the only reason?"</p><p>His heart screams no. It screams <em> I'll come with you wherever you go because you made this Hell worth living. You can take me across oceans and over mountains and I'll follow in your footsteps. You are the sun and the moon and the way the Earth moves. Ask me again. Ask me, Natalia</em>.</p><p>Her voice is firm, her eyes bright when she says, "Is that the only reason, Clint?"</p><p>"No," he whispers.</p><p>She nods. "No. I didn't think so."</p><p>-</p><p>They have enough game to last a week. Natalia drops it at doorsteps and he picks carrots from the Sheriff's garden, and then they walk side by side to the field. He's forgotten the horse's name but Natalia melts at the sight of him. They sit in the clover until long after the sun paints her golden.</p><p>"Yelena is in Prague."</p><p>Clint nods like he knows what that means. "Far to travel?"</p><p>"Yes." Natalia holds his hand again. He's starting to get used to the feeling of being wanted. "I left her long before I found you."</p><p>"They got the plague in Prague?"</p><p>She shrugs. "Not when I left, but the news had spread just as quickly."</p><p>"How old is she?" He hears himself asking. "Yelena. I mean before she died. She looks so young."</p><p>"Fourteen, most likely," she replies. "She's like my sister. I taught her English."</p><p>"I had a friend teach me French. Long time ago now. I remember it."</p><p>Natalia laughs. It's loud and full-bellied and sends the horse skittering away. It's a genuine laugh and he files the sound of it away for a rainy day.</p><p>"They changed the dialect. Nobody speaks Old French anymore."</p><p>Clint feels a little cheated. "That's stupid."</p><p>"It's okay," she assures him when she's got her breath back. "I can teach you as many languages as you like."</p><p>"You could talk to Yelena back then," he says carefully. "Are you from Kievan Rus', too?"</p><p>"No one's from Kievan Rus' anymore," Natalia says bitterly. "In another lifetime Yelena and I might have actually been sisters."</p><p>"There's too many other lives." Clint squeezes her fingers and it brings back an echo. His mother had done that, once. Had he been dead then? "I'd like to focus on this one."</p><p>"I guess," she agrees. "We should probably go home."</p><p>They walk hand in hand and then get ready for bed separately, Natalia using the wash tub first while he makes her favourite tea with honey. By the time he's scrubbed the grime from his face her hair is braided and her mug empty. She pats the space next to her and he climbs in again. He's wary to get too close until she curls herself around him, reminding him of a cat basking in the sunlight.</p><p>"We need to do more," she says to him as he snuffs the candle. "Before we find Yelena, I mean. We need to do more for the people who aren't as fortunate."</p><p>"I've been trying," he says around a yawn. "We give them pillows and food. What more is there?"</p><p>"Taxes are too high. We need to give them more money."</p><p>Clint thinks about his money pouch, tucked away in his quiver, and the lone silver coin that it holds. Natalia had turned up with just the clothes on her back and the Black Death on her skin, and with a plague running rampant through the village work is a little hard to come by. He has no idea what else he <em> can </em>do.</p><p>"If I were a King I would just—I don't know, share the money around." He lets his eyes slip shut and feels her breath on his cheek, as close as she can be without being on top of him. "I don't know."</p><p>"They shouldn't be so wealthy," she murmurs. "Yelena would say that they deserve to lose it all. She's... ruthless."</p><p>"Steal from the rich, give to the poor," Clint mutters wryly, then opens his eyes only to meet Natalia's steady gaze. "Wait."</p><p>"I think you got it," she says. "It's brilliant."</p><p>"It's illegal."</p><p>"It's illegal that they should have so much wealth to begin with."</p><p>He stares at her. She stares back with enough hope for the both of them.</p><p>"We don't owe them anything," he says carefully.</p><p>Natalia smiles, soft and true. "And the world doesn't owe us anything. But we have the means to make a difference."</p><p>She's right. He's not sure how many times he's already admitted that to himself, but Natalia has more life experience than he gives her credit for. He still doesn't know how she winded up here and he's not sure she'll ever tell him, and the more time that passes the more he finds himself not caring. She's here, stuck like him. It's not so bad to go through it with her.</p><p>"Okay," he says. "Okay, Natalia."</p><p>She closes her eyes. Clint does too. He feels her breath on his lips all night.</p><p>-</p><p>Clint's been stealing from the rich for longer than he probably ever realised. Doing it with Natalia is a different kind of exciting. They work well together, moving in tandem, playing parts that only she is crazy enough to dream of. When he looks over his shoulder and sees her waiting for him it's like a breath of fresh air.</p><p>They're so successful that leaving seems counterproductive, but Natalia still takes a month to find Yelena and bring her home. Clint knows, now, how much time passes in her absence. They return and there's thirty-three marks carved beside the door, and she touches them gently before ushering Yelena in. He grows and bends around the new addition to the small place they have made their own. Growing and bending is all he <em> can </em>do.</p><p>Yelena is smart. She likes to help and rolls her eyes whenever Natalia makes her stay home. Clint makes her a bow of her own out of a branch from the Major Oak to please her; she practises until her fingers bleed, waits for them to heal in less than a minute, and then keeps going. She’s young and full of life and eventually her joy rubs off on him too. The house becomes more than the walls that he bought. </p><p>At night, she lays in Natalia’s arms and he listens to stories spill like secrets into the darkness. Yelena falls asleep before she finishes but she keeps going, maybe for him or maybe for herself. She doesn’t say goodnight when the story ends and he misses the tight curl of her body around his. If he was a praying man he might ask for something more than the straw he’s made his bed from. </p><p>They spend happy months in Nottingham; the weather cools considerably and he ignores the itch in his palms to run, instead keeping his hands busy in the pockets of the rich. Natalia bats her eyelashes and causes just enough distraction to keep their eyes on her body, which might bother him if he lets himself think about it for long enough. He doesn’t, and the Sheriff visits them every week, and by the time the snow has set they’ve kept more families in their homes than he can count. </p><p>"Ow!" Yelena moans, pulling her head away from Natalia’s deft fingers. The fire crackles behind them and Clint laughs under his breath at the look of disdain on her face. "You’re pulling too hard."</p><p>"Sit still," Natalia chastises. She begins the braid again, shaking out the strands of blonde hair. "It only hurts when you move."</p><p>Yelena pulls a face that only he can see. "Natalia, you are rough."</p><p>"How old are you now?"</p><p>"One hundred and fifteen," she says gleefully. "Why?"</p><p>Natalia snorts. "You’re too old to be whining like a child."</p><p>Yelena pouts and turns her doe eyes to Clint. She <em> is </em>like a sister, or is at least annoying enough to be like one. He holds his hands up in surrender and shakes his head. </p><p>"This doesn’t involve me."</p><p>Yelena frowns and slumps over again and Natalia rolls her eyes, crossing the parted hair quickly between her hands. She ties the end with a ribbon and gives the younger girl a playful shove away, and Yelena falls to the floor dramatically. Clint covers his smile with his hand. Encouraging her has led to more than one sleepless night.</p><p>"I'm dead," she giggles. "Natalia killed me! Clint seeks revenge."</p><p>"I told you that I'm not a part of this," he reminds her. "If she killed you then you need to get your own revenge."</p><p>Yelena cracks an eye open to stare at him. "<em>Boring</em>. Can we please just do one play?"</p><p>He catches Natalia's gaze and watches her shrug one shoulder, eyes sparkling with amusement. Clint's not much for Yelena's games, though Natalia had told him once that she had been doing this with the younger girl for a hundred years on her own. It's childish, but he supposes that Yelena needs childish. So when he sighs and stands up it's worth the excited cheer from the young girl. Natalia's warm smile is worth more, though.</p><p>"Yelena is dead," he says haltingly. Acting has never been his strong suit, and his tone makes Yelena laugh. "I wonder who did it?"</p><p>"'Twas I," Natalia declares. She stands too and pulls an arrow out of his quiver, brandishing it like a sword. "She was an annoying little girl who wouldn't let me brush her hair."</p><p>"Hey!" Yelena cries. "I am <em> not </em> a little girl."</p><p>"So I stabbed her in the back," Natalia continues. "I would do it again."</p><p>"Clint hunts her down," Yelena narrates, and he moves around the room at a slow walk to appease her. "Natalia tries to stab him, but he can sense what she’s about to do and ducks."</p><p>He ducks gloriously slowly and Natalia swings the arrow above his head. When he stands up they’re toe to toe and his next breath stutters in his chest. She’s beautiful, more beautiful than anyone has the right to be. He’s spent decades alone or in the beds of people he doesn’t even know and yet he’s never seen so much desire swim in someone else’s eyes before. Her gaze lingers on his lips and he waits for Yelena to announce his victory.</p><p>"Instead of fighting to the death, they kiss."</p><p>The two of them turn to look at her in unison. Yelena grins, giving them a pointed look, and Clint's heart starts to pound. Natalia is close enough that he can feel the space between their bodies. Time might stop, then, for the first time in months. It might speed up, too, but Clint gets left behind. Her hand finds his wrist, ties him down.</p><p>"Yelena," Natalia says softly. There's something in her tone that sounds like she doesn't want this to stop. Her nails scrape the soft flesh over his veins and he shivers. "This isn't how the play ends."</p><p>"It is today," Yelena says. "I'm tired of dying. Just one kiss and I'll go to bed."</p><p>Natalia mutters something under her breath. Clint doesn't know what it means, but he'll remember the feeling behind it for as long as he’s destined to live. More than that, though, more than the hum of her voice and the heaviness of her eyes on his; more than the cold that’s made home in his bones, he’ll remember this: Natalia’s lips, soft on his cheek, the corners of their mouths brushing and the breath that escapes her like a prayer. </p><p>"There," Natalia whispers. Her words stick to his skin and he stays still, not wanting to break the spell. "Now bed."</p><p>Yelena scrambles off the ground and jumps into his bed. "Rub my back."</p><p>When she moves away it feels like something snaps between them. He swallows and walks over to the fire, distracting himself with keeping the flames alight. The place where she kissed him burns in an entirely new way. He wants to run his hands through her hair. He wants to push her against the wall. </p><p>"Goodnight," Yelena calls to him. He turns in time to see her close her eyes but Natalia doesn’t look over at him. He takes a mug of warm honeyed milk with him to the table and sits heavily, waiting. </p><p>Yelena finally slips into sleep and Natalia joins him at the table. It’s not awkward; if anything, it’s exactly how it always has been, just the two of them basking in the kind of quiet night that makes the world seem insignificant. </p><p>She’s staring at her hands when she says, "I’m sorry about Yelena. She gets carried away."</p><p>"It’s fine," he says quickly, too quickly. "It was just one of her silly games. No harm done."</p><p>"Okay. I’m not sure she had a fulfilling childhood, so the games are not so… tiring, when you realise that." </p><p>"Did any of us have a fulfilling childhood?" He jokes. It falls flat, though Natalia still offers him a weak smile. "I'm glad she can still have fun."</p><p>"Is this your way of admitting that you're not having fun?" She asks.</p><p>"I'm having more fun now than I did before you came," he tells her. "And we're doing good, right? That was all you wanted."</p><p>Natalia nods, red curls bouncing down her back. Her hair is long and when he reaches up to feel his own hair he's surprised to find it brushing his collar. He can't remember the last time he trimmed it or even so much as looked at his reflection properly in the wash tub. Looks haven't meant much when handing stolen money over to the poor.</p><p>"Is that what you want?" She says eventually, voice a whisper of hope. "To do good, I mean. Or is there something else, too?"</p><p>Clint scrubs a hand over his face. There's a lot that he wants; to die one day, being the main one, but there are new things now that he hasn't thought of before. He wants to travel and find a home for himself that feels like home. He wants his life to amount to more than the scars on his chest and the arrows he carries on his back. He wants Yelena to find happiness and grow old. He wants to kiss Natalia and mean it, and he wants her to kiss him back, too.</p><p>He likes her in the way that Pietro had taught him. His foundations have crumbled more times than he can count but never before has he had someone to help him rebuild them. Natalia is his constant in a world that has never made sense, and he wants to <em> be </em>with her, more than he has with anyone else in his life. Maybe it's not about the friendship they were forced to form over a curse that he's not even convinced is a curse anymore. Maybe it's about something else now.</p><p>"I wouldn't say no to one of those feasts in the palace," he deflects. "Or a new bow that's made by someone who knows what they're doing. But I think what we have isn't so bad."</p><p>It's not what she wanted to hear, he can see it in the way her shoulders hunch slightly inwards, like she's bracing herself for a blow that doesn't come. Or maybe it already came, and the lie he told her hit harder than he expected. Either way, she recovers quickly, rolls her eyes and gets up from the table. She bypasses the bed and takes her cloak from the door, draping it over her shoulders and tucking her hair into the back of it.</p><p>"I'll be back later." He watches her hesitate, as though she wants to say something else, and he thinks, <em> just say what I'm not brave enough to</em>. "Don't stay up."</p><p>"Goodnight," he hears himself say, which is nothing of what he really wanted to say at all. She slips into the night and he listens for anything that will tell him what she's going to do, but he won't listen to his own heart and the way that it screams at him to follow.</p><p>
  <em> I want you, as more than a friend. I want to kiss you and touch you and be with you. If you'll have me, if you'll allow it, I want to be with you forever. We have forever, Natalia. We have forever and that's all we need. I want you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I want you to let me love you. </em>
</p><p>-</p><p>They don't talk about the kiss, which would be absolutely fine with Clint if he could stop <em> thinking </em>about it. Natalia doesn't tell him where she went that night and he doesn't ask. Not much has changed, but the subtle shift still feels like mountains. When he wakes at night to find her watching him he pretends not to notice, saving them both from a conversation he’s not sure they’ll ever be ready to have.</p><p>News of their thieving spreads far beyond Nottingham. There are months spent in sunshine counting coins, months with Yelena breaking bones for the thrill of it; months that turn to days that turn to seconds, until Clint feels the familiar crush of his life come back. Months pass and Natalia’s hair grows an inch or two while the rest of her stays the same. She’s right, again. The world changes and they get left behind.</p><p>Still, they keep him grounded. He lets them take some of the burden off his back just to get a good night's sleep and then accepts it back the next morning, a little lighter than he left it. It becomes familial. It becomes everything he had never allowed himself to hope for, and it terrifies him more than the thought of never actually dying. People leave, it’s a universal truth. And yet <em> they </em> stay, and he doesn’t really know what that means.</p><p>Yelena tells him about her deaths; the one that she caused and the second one, when Natalia hadn’t been quick enough to stop a man twice her size from snapping the girl’s neck. She’s held her breath underwater and learnt that immortality doesn’t mean <em> God </em>, and drowning is her biggest fear, even more so than the idea that she’ll never grow up. She tells him all these things and doesn’t expect anything in return except for a kiss on the cheek before bed. He gets a new horse and teaches her how to shoot an arrow from it’s back to say thank you.</p><p>Natalia is a little harder to read. He doesn’t know how old she is and no amount of teasing will get her to give it up. Clint’s not entirely sure he wants to know now anyway. None of them have died since she did from the plague; <em> ninety-eight</em>, she had said, and he hadn’t thought of it since. Ninety-eight times is ninety-seven too many and the only one he knows about is the one that she showed him.</p><p>"What’s this?" Yelena asks, holding a green jewel up and away from her face.</p><p>Natalia has her back to them, her shoulders exposed to the sun. Clint’s been staring without realising and tears his eyes away to inspect the small object in Yelena’s hand. Green like grass in the winter, before the snow. He shivers and she frowns.</p><p>"Emerald." He tips the pouch out into his palm and runs his finger through the diamonds. The day’s hot and he wants to go to the river to cool off, but Natalia is convinced that now is the only time to plant. When she speaks they generally listen. "Expensive."</p><p>"Can I keep this one?" She says. "I want to put it in my pocket. For luck."</p><p>He can’t deny her that logic. "Sure. Just don’t tell the boss."</p><p>"Okay," Yelena laughs, then pulls herself up to jog over to Natalia. "Natka, look what Clint gave me!"</p><p>He rolls his eyes and waves off Natalia’s glare. She wipes sweat from her forehead and gestures for him to come over, so he hauls himself up and makes his way towards them with just a little more swagger in his step than usual. Her eyes linger on his bare chest for a second longer than he would have expected from her.</p><p>"An emerald?" She says incredulously. "Really, Clint?"</p><p>"I told her not to tell you, so this is on her."</p><p>Yelena grins and twirls in a circle, dress flying outwards and catching in the light breeze. She holds the jewel out in front of her and the light catches in it, reflecting back across Natalia’s shoulders. "It’s a birthday present." </p><p>"Birthday present?" Clint asks.</p><p>Natalia gives him a look. "Yelena <em> thinks </em>it’s her birthday next week."</p><p>"I know it’s my birthday," Yelena argues. "I remember it. Mama got me a doll when she was still alive."</p><p>"And now you have an emerald," Natalia mutters. "What’s next? A house?"</p><p>"I don’t want to live on my own," Yelena pouts. </p><p>Clint snorts. "You’re old enough to. What will next week make you?"</p><p>"One hundred and sixteen. That’s nearly a thousand years younger than—"</p><p>"Yelena," Natalia interrupts. Her lips press into a thin line and Clint thinks that the shine to her eyes could be fear. It could also be annoyance, though she gives no outward signs of either. "Go feed the horse."</p><p>"Okay!" Yelena agrees. She tucks the emerald into the front of her dress and dances past him, winking as she goes. He can only shake his head. The girl is too clever for her own good.</p><p>Natalia turns to him then, shielding her eyes from the sun with the back of her hand. "Not your smartest idea."</p><p>"Who says any of my ideas are smart?"</p><p>She drops the hoe and breathes out, long and deep "Let's go swimming."</p><p>He doesn't ask why she changed her mind. He follows her, watching the sun reflect off of the freckles across her shoulders. Under the shade of the trees in the forest he feels like he can draw his first full breath of air all day. She leads him to the river and toes out of her shoes, and he does the same, testing the water with his foot.</p><p>"Where'd you learn to swim?" He asks her. She pulls her dress down from where she had already had it pooled at her waist and he keeps his eyes on the water. Her chemise joins the pile of clothing on the grass. He swallows and unbuttons his shirt.</p><p>"Does it matter?"</p><p>"Can't a man ask a simple question?"</p><p>Natalia smiles at him and steps into the water, and he catches a glimpse of creamy pale skin when he dares to peek. She submerges her head under the water and comes up with a challenge in her eyes. Her hair, usually so bright, sticks to her back in shades of deep crimson.</p><p>"After my first death," she tells him carefully. "It seemed a valuable life skill."</p><p>"Don't tell me that's how you died?" He teases, because swimming with Natalia is uncharted territory in its own right, but swimming <em> naked </em>is a whole other story that he hasn't thought to open yet.</p><p>She tilts her head. "No. Not even close."</p><p>"One day you might actually tell me," he says. He takes a breath and steps out of his pants, then his braies. "What was that Yelena was saying about a thou—"</p><p>Natalia pushes herself up and out of the water, and he can't help the natural shift of his eyes downwards to her bare breasts. Maybe she knows exactly what she's doing, and maybe he doesn't care. He wades into the water and stops an inch from her, chests touching, lips a breath away.</p><p>"You were saying?" She whispers.</p><p>"Not important. I have another question."</p><p>She raises an eyebrow, gaze locked on his lips. He wants to touch her. "Oh?"</p><p>"Is this just a game?"</p><p>"No." Her answer is immediate, her tone firm. Sweat trickles down the side of her temple and he feels her foot brush his under the water. If only she knew the power she holds over him. "Now I have one for you. Have you done this before?"</p><p>He snorts. "Yes. I'm not <em> dead</em>."</p><p>"Out of wedlock?" She feigns shock, leaning in slightly until she can graze her teeth over his bottom lip. He follows her as she pulls away and her smile almost sends him straight to his knees. "How very naughty of you."</p><p>"No point waiting for a marriage that I'll outlive," he breathes. "We all need our fun."</p><p>Natalia reaches for his hand, moves it under the water so he can spread his fingers over her side. His thumb grazes the bottom of her breast and her breath catches in her throat, and it takes everything in him to keep his eyes on her. He wants her, more than he's wanted anything in the world.</p><p>She leans closer and says, "Kiss me."</p><p>And maybe she does know her power after all.</p><p>-</p><p>Yelena isn't home when they pull themselves from the river, skin healing too quickly for wrinkles to even form. Natalia holds his hand or maybe he holds hers, but they drag each other back inside on legs that still tremble. The mid-afternoon sun is just as brutal and the inside of the house is hot; he pulls a blanket across the window while she takes a knife and apple to the table.</p><p>"Was that your way of talking about the night of the play?" Clint asks when he's seated across from her.</p><p>She takes a slice out of the apple and eats it off the end of the knife. "Was there something to talk about?"</p><p>"I wanted to kiss you then," he admits. "Really kiss you."</p><p>"I've wanted to kiss you for a hundred years," she replies nonchalantly. "Just to see what it would be like."</p><p>He frowns. "That's a long time."</p><p>He hadn't wanted to see her during that time. He had barely allowed himself to think of them, so buried in his grief that he was. It seems like an insignificant worry to have now that he knows life isn't really that bad. He still doesn't want to be forced to live forever, but the idea of it doesn't sting as harshly as it once had.</p><p>"You intrigued me," she says. "When Yelena told me that she had seen a man like us, I expected him to be a little more..."</p><p>"Handsome?" He guesses. "Smart?"</p><p>"Irresponsible," she settles on. "Living forever can make people do stupid things, Clint."</p><p>"I know." He sighs and runs his hand through his still-dripping hair. "I did think of doing stupid things, but the novelty wore off. That was how I died the second time."</p><p>Natalia regards him with the type of look that makes him think she can see his soul. It's an odd look, and not just because he doesn't believe his soul is anywhere near his body anymore. There's a fondness there, in the crinkle of her eyes. He's not had another person look at him that way before.</p><p>"Let me trim your hair," she murmurs eventually. She hands him the rest of her apple and begins hunting for the shears he's seen her use on Yelena before. "You might get lice."</p><p>"You'll get it first," he jokes. "Can I ask you another question?"</p><p>"Another? I can't guarantee that I'll have an answer."</p><p>He shrugs. "That's okay. I just... How does someone die ninety-eight times?"</p><p>She finds the shears and comes to stand behind him. He feels her fingers brush his hair, running through knots and tangles that sex on the riverbank caused. If he closes his eyes he can still see her above him, mouth open around a silent moan, nails leaving marks on his chest that disappeared a second later. </p><p>"They live an awfully long time," she answers. "Or maybe they're reckless, in the beginning. I'm not perfect Clint."</p><p>She is, to him, and he wants to tell her. There are so many things he wants to tell her, but he also understands what she means. She has a past too, different from him and yet achingly similar, because both of their lives should have ended before they had really begun.</p><p>"Can you cut it short?" He asks. "Harder for lice, you see."</p><p>She laughs softly and begins cutting, and they both fall silent. Once, he might have imagined her stabbing him in the back with the shears, disappearing into another country before he has a chance to even really look for her. Now, when the cool metal grazes his throat he only swallows the desire that burns in his belly.</p><p>"I didn't think you would join me," she says eventually. "In the river, I mean."</p><p>"Only an idiot would say no to you. I hadn't waited a hundred years, but a month or two was long enough."</p><p>"Just from one kiss?" He can hear the smile in her voice and smiles too. "It wasn't even on the lips."</p><p>"You're pretty special, Natalia. I don't swim naked for just anyone."</p><p>"What if I asked you to call me something else?" She asks slowly. He listens to the sound of the shears slicing through his hair and feels the strands fall down his back. She blows them off his shoulders and he shivers involuntarily. "Another name that is... similar, to Natalia, but more personal."</p><p>He frowns, shrugs a shoulder up towards his ear. "You can ask me whatever you like. Did you come up with this yourself?"</p><p>"Yes." There's a new type of doubt in her voice that he hasn't heard before. "Natalia is a nice name. I just had a thought one day that maybe <em> she </em> died and I took her place, because it doesn't feel the same way that it once did."</p><p>"Okay," he replies. "Tell me."</p><p>"Natasha," she whispers. "Can you call me Natasha?"</p><p>He's never heard the name before, but there are a lot of things that she's taught him and this is no different. He rolls it around in his head, fits it to her face and finds that he likes it more. Natasha, like golden sunsets, like soft touches underwater and his arm over her waist in the night.</p><p>"Natasha," Clint says. "It's beautiful."</p><p>Her exhale is one of relief. She continues cutting and he lets her process her vulnerability in her own way. It's not often that he sees her self-conscious and he's grateful to know all sides of her; he doesn't know that he'll ever be worthy enough of carrying all of her secrets, but he takes this one in the palm of his hands and locks it away for safekeeping.</p><p>When she finishes he runs his hand through his hair again and comes up short. It's already more comfortable and he chances his luck with a kiss to her cheek, a kiss that soon turns to them stumbling into bed in a mass of sticky limbs and wandering hands. When they come together Clint feels like he finally has a purpose, like all of it has been leading to this: a woman with hair like fire whose touch melts the frost that lives in his veins. </p><p>They drift in the warmth of their bodies pressed together. Clint dreams again, feels the mud between his fingers and the fear that claws its way up his throat. There’s something against the back of his neck and then he wakes, remembering Pietro and the sound he had made before he died. He had had the dream then, too, except it hadn’t been a dream so much as a memory.</p><p>He pulls himself out of bed and gets re-dressed, then leaves the house for fresh water. Yelena is coming back from the field and he meets her at the well, smiling as she tells him about her afternoon with the horse. She wants to practise archery and he agrees with an easiness he hasn’t felt before. He never needs an excuse to pull out his bow, especially if it doesn’t involve robbing anyone in the process.</p><p>"What did you do?" Yelena asks as they walk. "Did Natka make you plough the field?"</p><p>"No," Clint replies. "We went for a swim."</p><p>She pouts. "No fair. You were trying to get rid of me."</p><p>"Never," he assures her. They make it back to the house and he leaves the water inside the door. Natalia—<em> Natasha</em>, his mind corrects—opens one eye lazily to watch him leave again. "We worked so hard that we just needed to cool off."</p><p>Yelena accepts his answer and they uncover their bows from the side of the house. They've had a few quiet days free of robbing the rich and it feels good to get his fingers back around the smooth limbs. The two of them head back to the forest and the Major Oak where he's carved a target into the trunk.</p><p>"How's your form?" He checks, repositions her elbows and watches her arrow fly just off centre. "You're getting better."</p><p>"Did she tell you about her name?" Yelena asks suddenly. "She told me last week. She was worried you wouldn't like it."</p><p>"It's nice," Clint says. "As long as she's happy."</p><p>Yelena pulls back and aims again but the arrow misses the target altogether. "Did you kiss her?"</p><p>Clint doesn't have anything to choke on, but he still does, spluttering awkwardly in the wake of her question. "What?"</p><p>"She wanted to kiss you." At the look on his face she continues, pointing an arrow at him seriously. "Clint, I may be forever stuck in the body of a fourteen year old, but that doesn't mean that I can't still <em> grow up</em>."</p><p>"You act like a fourteen year old," he protests weakly.</p><p>Yelena flicks her hair over her shoulder and shrugs. "Wouldn't you? If you had people who loved and cared for you and made sure you were safe? Wouldn't you just let yourself have some fun?"</p><p>"Of course," he answers. "I just—I mean, I never thought that..."</p><p>"That I'm going to be one hundred and sixteen next week? I <em> have </em>lived for an awful long time. I know how the world works, and Natalia knows that too."</p><p>"Natasha," he corrects automatically, and Yelena waves him off.</p><p>"She doesn't care what I call her. We've been together for far too long."</p><p>"A hundred years, right?" He laughs and shoots his own arrow, hitting a perfect bullseye. "That makes me one hundred and thirty-eight."</p><p>"And Natalia is well into her thousands, now." Yelena sits herself down against the trunk and pats the spot next to her until he sits beside her. "She doesn't like to talk about it."</p><p>One thousand years is the kind of time that Clint doesn't want to gain. Empires rise and fall in less time than that, and Natasha has lived through it all; often on her own, most likely, depending on which decade Maria died in. The sadness in her eyes makes sense now. She doesn't have a place to call home because wherever she came from is probably gone, too.</p><p>"How did it happen?" His voice is gruff, face sweaty. Yelena digs the tip of her arrow into the ground and starts making a hole. "She always changes the subject."</p><p>"I've only seen her scar once, when she let me brush her hair," Yelena says softly. "She didn't let me do it again. It's on the back of her neck."</p><p>
  <em> Something against the back of his neck. Fear, choking him, building until it's all he can taste. He looks up and there's a halo of red hair, and it's his hair, hanging around his face as they— </em>
</p><p>"They cut her head off," she continues. "It took two swings of the axe. She doesn't talk about it because the memory isn't nice. She was scared and alone."</p><p>Clint swallows. His voice is soft when he says, "Weren't we all scared and alone?"</p><p>She shrugs. "They threw her body in a pit. It took a whole day for her head to reconnect. She said it was agony."</p><p>His stomach churns at the thought. He can understand why Natasha wouldn't want to tell him the details, thinking maybe she might save him the horror, but it's all the same to him: a death is a death, no matter the circumstance, and it had still led her here to this moment with them. He knows now that he's been seeing her death in his head for years. He's been <em> living </em>her death in his head for years.</p><p>"Why?" He asks. "Did she do something wrong?"</p><p>"No. Her husband did."</p><p>There's an Earth-shattering realisation that he doesn't know her half as well as he thought he did. Yelena raises her eyebrow at him and laughs softly, for the first time looking years older than her face.</p><p>"We were people before we were this," she says. "We had lives."</p><p>"What was yours like?" He says, looking for a distraction.</p><p>"Not good, or else I wouldn't have done what I did."</p><p>It was a stupid question to ask. Clint nods and tries to imagine a version of Natasha that had a husband. She's so much her own person that he can't imagine her sharing much of herself, and yet she's had more than a thousand years to adapt and change to the world around her. She gives just enough, and he takes as much as he can.</p><p>"Mine wasn't great either," he tells her. "Guess we have more than just this curse in common."</p><p>Yelena stabs the arrow into the ground and leaves it there, winding her arms around her knees. "I thought I would be invincible, when Natka told me what had happened to me. That's why I tried to hold my breath underwater for so long. I thought I could swim the oceans for years and discover creatures that had never been seen before."</p><p>Clint glances at her. "But it doesn't work like that."</p><p>"I know. That's what scares me."</p><p>He gets that. He gets the fear that comes with realising you're just <em> not </em> invincible, and he knows that it won't ever really go away. It's one thing to want to die, and he does; it's just that sometimes the thought of never having to worry about the <em> pain </em>of it all is too tempting to pass up. He wishes he could breathe underwater, too. He wishes he could find something new for Yelena.</p><p>"Who knows," he jokes. "Maybe one day we'll grow gills."</p><p>She snorts and pulls herself to her feet. "That's silly. Race you back?"</p><p>Clint barely has time to get his feet under him before Yelena's tearing out from under the canopy of branches, kicking up dust behind her. She's fast and has too much of a head-start for him to even hope to catch her, and by the time he rolls up the front path Natasha is already trying to wrangle her out of her dirty dress.</p><p>"I washed this yesterday and now you're covered in dirt," she snaps. "Really, Yelena?"</p><p>"Uspokoit'sya," Yelena says with a wave of her hand. "What's for dinner?"</p><p>"You can cook," Natasha says sternly. "You're certainly old enough."</p><p>Yelena's mouth forms a perfect circle. "But—"</p><p>"That sounds like a great idea," Clint throws in. "There's enough vegetables to feed a small army and a little smoked fish leftover from last night."</p><p>Yelena grumbles something he doesn't understand and Natasha responds in kind. The glare that passes between them is fierce enough that Clint almost offers to make dinner, and then Natasha seemingly wins whatever silent battle they had been warring and Yelena stomps into the house with an attitude fit for a King.</p><p>Natasha rolls her eyes down the path. "Walk with me."</p><p>He falls into step beside her and she instantly reaches for his hand. They've not done much else in the past few days except walk, and he knows exactly where she's leading him before they've even turned the corner towards the town.</p><p>"What's this all about?" He asks.</p><p>"Yelena told you, didn't she?" Despite it being a question he almost doesn't know if she's expecting an answer. She doesn't seem mad but that doesn't mean anything with Natasha. She only ever shows what she wants to.</p><p>"Yes," he replies. Honesty was never his strong suit before. Before all of this, before being honest was the only honest thing left to do. "How did you know?"</p><p>"You looked at me with pity. You've never looked at me that way before."</p><p>He doesn't mean to look at her like anything. He's felt her fear, though, felt the utter hopelessness that had overcome her in the seconds before the axe had fallen. There's something to be said about the two of them meeting their deaths at the other end of a silver blade. At least he had had some warning before the final strike.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says.</p><p>She smiles. "For what?"</p><p>"For the way that it happened?" He shrugs. "I don't know. Sorry that Yelena is smarter than I gave her credit for?"</p><p>"You don't need to apologise for anything, Clint," she assures him. "I wanted to tell you. I didn't realise it would still sting quite as badly one thousand years later."</p><p>"You're old," he teases. "If we're in the business of sharing right now, do you mind if I ask—"</p><p>"How old I was, when it happened?" Natasha tilts her head up to the sky and smiles. "Twenty-four, I think. I only say that because it's been so long since I've thought about it."</p><p>She was young, too, even though he had expected her to be. Nothing is quite as shocking as Yelena and the body that she's stuck in for eternity but he still wonders if this would happen to someone lucky enough to die from old age. It doesn't seem possible, and the more he lives the more he realises that a body much older simply wouldn't work in the same way.</p><p>"We're all old," he says. "We don't have to talk about it ever again."</p><p>"Did she tell you about Adrian?"</p><p>He tries to imagine that there's no emotion in her voice when she asks. He wants to think that Adrian and whatever life they had made together doesn't impact her anymore, the same way that he tells himself his parent's ghosts don't linger. He knows that it's not as easy as that, though; he had barely known Pietro and the man's death is still his biggest regret.</p><p>People leave marks, he's realised. No matter how hard he tries to shake them they're stuck like mud and the dirt gets caught under his nails. His skin heals around new wounds before he can blink most times and he supposes that the echo of a bruise is trapped somewhere underneath. Each new person a new bruise that he's destined to wear for the rest of his life.</p><p>"Yes. She mentioned it."</p><p>"I'm a widow," Natasha says humorlessly. "He didn't know they would try to kill me too. It probably wouldn't have made a difference."</p><p>"Nobody deserves to die for someone else's mistake," Clint says carefully. "Even if that person is their wife."</p><p>"I loved him," she tells him, looking him squarely in the eyes. "I need you to know that there will always be a part of me that's tied there. I loved him but it was the type of love that was convenient."</p><p>"That's okay. We can't escape our past, Natasha. I guess that's what makes us like everyone else."</p><p>The store she takes him to has a crimson red dress hanging in the doorway. It's the type of dress that the general population of Nottingham would be too poor to even look at, the type of dress that makes the wearer <em> look </em>like royalty. It's not the kind of dress he imagines on Natasha; when he thinks of her dressed up he pictures her in armour with a sword longer than the length of his spine, wielding it on horseback as she gallops into battle.</p><p>She makes a good partner. He doesn't want to go back to fighting to the death but will if there's another moment of his life that calls for it. He's not naive enough to accept that this—Nottingham and the three of them living in a bubble of their own—will last forever, or even another year. They've been lucky to make it this far without being caught. He's got enough blessings to count on one hand and he doesn't want to put a finger down before he's ready.</p><p>"What do you think?" She asks him.</p><p>"Nice. I'm not sure that red suits you."</p><p>She snorts. "For Yelena. Her birthday?"</p><p>Clint can't remember the last time he celebrated a birthday. Barney might have been given a knife, once, for turning thirteen. It's just another memory that won't disentangle from the deepest crevices of his mind.</p><p>"She would love it," he says, knowing more than anything that Yelena would wear the dress everyday if given the opportunity. "She would probably love anything we gave her."</p><p>"It's awkward for her, being so young and yet so old. I don't think it's really sunk in for her."</p><p><em> It hasn't sunk in for me either</em>, he wants to tell her. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to fully come to terms with the cards he's been dealt because he never imagined a life after that battlefield in England. Sometimes he still doesn't imagine a life beyond what he's got right in front of him. There's a future by his side, though, a future that has a beating heart just like his. One day they might run out of seconds and all he wants now is to not be left behind without her.</p><p>"This is a good choice," he says. "Is that all you brought me here for?"</p><p>"Of course not," Natasha laughs. "The princess is inside."</p><p>"<em>The </em> princess?" Clint asks, then shakes his head. "How do you know?"</p><p>"People tell me things," she replies cryptically, tugging his hand. "Let's go. If we're quick we can be back at her carriage before the fitting is over."</p><p>"Why would the princess be in Nottingham, of all places?" Clint chances a peek around the red dress and sees a young woman being ushered between fabrics. If she's a princess then he'd like to see what jewellery the Queen wears. "There's so many places that are, I don't know. Cleaner."</p><p>"Because the plague has already torn through the town." She shrugs and bats her lashes at him devilishly. "There's also a rumour that there's emeralds in Nottingham."</p><p>Clint blinks. "Is that so?"</p><p>Natasha winks and yanks him into the store. He's not sure what he steals more of that day; rings and gold or the feather-light kisses she presses to his lips whenever they happen to pass each other, but still. Either way, he's the richest man in England.</p><p>-</p><p>They get Yelena the dress. He carves her a walking stick out of the same tree he made her bow from and she cracks him over the head with it so ferociously that he lies on the floor for a whole hour, waiting to see if he'll die from internal bleeding or if the room's only spinning from the force. Natasha bakes a cake that turns out hard as stone and they sit in the field with the horse all afternoon; Yelena declares it her best birthday yet and doesn't take the dress off for a week.</p><p>The last year they spend in Nottingham is full of the kinds of adventures he could never have dreamt of but the days tick by too slowly. Even Yelena, who adores the countryside and is ruthless in stealing from the rich, longs for something new. <em> A change of scenery </em>, Natasha had said, as though they weren't being forced from their home by time they didn't have. All of the minutes since she first stepped foot into Nottingham have been leading to their inevitable departure. It feels a little like losing a limb, or dying before they're ready. </p><p>And still. They go to Scotland, then Spain. Clint learns another language and Yelena dies after falling from a horse. They live in Prague and Rothenburg and Sighișoara. Natasha cuts her hair to her chin and uses the spare strands to make dolls for the children in their street, and he watches the miniature version of her be danced around outside their window. The days roll on and they live in Paris. It's different, now, though the memory is still fresh.</p><p>Natasha ends it, or maybe he does without realising it at the time. The relationship—he doesn't like to call it that, but he's not sure what else he <em> can </em> call it—becomes monotonous long before they leave Nottingham. There's love there, because there's always going to be love; it's just that an eternity together with too many <em> what ifs </em> hanging over their heads is far less appealing than the alternative, and so they become friends again, if they were ever really friends to begin with. <em> Mutual understanding</em>, Natasha tells him, and he learns something of what it means to compromise.</p><p>He misses her, which is strange when she's right there by his side, often behaving exactly as she always has: teasing him, playing games that don't mean what they once did. Natasha grows, and Clint does too, but he feels a little lopsided.</p><p>Yelena studies. He takes Natasha into battle more times than he can count and sits by her side when her wounds stitch themselves back together. She does too, so that whenever he wakes he has her hand in his, her smile above his face. It's not a bad way to die, with her. They joke about it on the way home and recount their tales to Yelena over the fire. She tests them on things he has no hope of knowing and they all settle, for just a while.</p><p>Another year passes, and then another. Clint fucks other people when he feels just a little too lonely and doesn't think of Natasha the way that he used to. He meets new people, doesn't let them get close enough to make it sting; meets new people and never gives any of himself in return for what they offer. It's a hard way to live, but he's had it harder.</p><p>One hundred years tick by and they celebrate with a bottle of wine and honey cake. The next hundred feels a bit like a fever dream and by the end of it he doesn't remember where they started or how they got to the end. Folklore from England reaches them in Turkey, and they hear tales of a man with a bow and a maiden in the forest. Natasha laughs and rolls her eyes; Yelena says, <em> men don't know a thing about history</em>. The world spins. He feels it in his bones, how turbulent it is.</p><p>Still, they stay together. Sometimes they argue, and Clint thinks of leaving on more than one occasion. He remembers that it had been easier, on his own, to just exist and be done with it. When he hears Natasha laugh and watches Yelena dance, he's not entirely sure he wants to <em> just </em>exist anymore.</p><p>They take the world they are given, ever-changing as it is, and mould themselves around it. Eventually it leads them across the ocean, to a country they've never been to before. He doesn't know it then, but he'll feel the ramifications of their decision for the rest of his life. He doesn't know it then, but Clint will not escape America whole.</p><p>-</p><p>
  <b>Salem, Massachusetts</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1692</b>
</p><p>Yelena picks Salem. She likes the trees, she says, though Clint thinks that trees will all look the same everywhere if you look hard enough. It's new and different and the first place they stop to call home in America; Natasha even ends up adopting a stray cat who turns out to be the kind of creature who wants to be left alone more often than not. The scratches on his hands heal but Liho just bites harder the next time.</p><p>He stays for a while. There's not much in Salem that strikes his interest, and so he makes day trips to other towns in the hopes of finding work that can pretend to be meaningful. He can't remember the last time he used his bow for anything other than practise with Yelena. He needs to keep his hands busy before he jumps ship altogether and goes back to a life that wasn't half as fulfilling.</p><p>Clint winds up in Weymouth and stays on his own this time. Being by himself again knocks him for a few days before old habits return like muscle memory. He works, he eats, he sleeps; sometimes he follows the other men to the tavern and spends an hour or two in their company, sipping beer that tastes more like water than anything else and keeping conversation moving so he can eventually slip out without being noticed. He goes to his little room and doesn't dream anymore, but he does miss them. <em> Growing pains</em>, he thinks.</p><p>It's the longest they've been away from each other since Nottingham. It's an insane thought to have, that Natasha and Yelena and Clint have been three people, together, for centuries; longer, even, then he was ever on his own. They've created a family all of their own and he's surprised to find that he waits for them at the end of the day. The door doesn't open, though, and he wonders what he's really running from.</p><p>Yelena's letter arrives a day before Natasha's. He tears into it with the kind of vigour he hasn't felt in years and only rolls his eyes at what she's written.</p><p>
  <em> You need to come home. Natalia won't let me catch smallpox like the other children. </em>
</p><p>Natasha's letter is written out carefully, with dried lavender pressed to the pages. He breathes it in and remembers a lifetime ago, or maybe it's just yesterday and the time has escaped him again. He checks the marks above the door, counts them until he knows it's true: nineteen days without them. Nineteen days re-learning how to be Clint Barton on his own.</p><p>
  <em> Yelena is not catching smallpox. Do not write her and encourage it. She has already scared half of the girls by launching herself out of another tree. You should have taken her with you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Salem is Salem. I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm not sure why I'm writing you, just that—well, it's different. I'm sure you feel it too. We had grown used to each other, you see. Time apart never killed anyone, though, and it certainly won't kill us. If Yelena keeps up her antics that might change. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Liho helps. On the lonely days, I mean. It's not that I miss you except that I think I do. Talking to you, mostly. Don't let this get to your head Clint Barton. This is me trying to get you to leave Weymouth early even if I know you won't. I am glad that you're doing this. We need space to breathe. Imagine how many more years we have of knowing each other. That's why... Well, we've had this conversation already. I think about it often. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So maybe that's the reason I wrote after all. To offer an apology. I didn't say sorry all those years ago—hundreds of years, if you're counting—because I was naive enough to think it would be easy to leave behind. Rather, it's the easier way out. Maybe I'm writing you to save myself the embarrassment of saying this to your face. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm going to stop writing about this now. I'm not very good at saying how I feel. The townspeople have become quite fascinated with my hair so I've taken to wearing my cloak again. They must think that Yelena and I are an odd pair because they avoid us on the street. Another reason why Yelena should not catch smallpox. I know she likes it here but we can't make a home yet. We'll wait for you, though, before we leave. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I hope you're well. I think of you often. Nineteen days have passed, if this letter reaches you on time. Nineteen days is not very long when compared to eternity. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Until then, or sooner, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Natasha </em>
</p><p>Clint stares at the note in the flickering candlelight, tracing his finger over the sloping curls of her writing. He can picture her by the fire, writing whilst Yelena sleeps. She would have read what Yelena had written, too, and he can imagine the smile on her face as she re-sealed the wax. </p><p>Her words sit heavy in his chest. It wasn’t easy to leave behind, even if it was just a simple love affair. It wasn’t easy to leave behind because it <em>was</em> a love affair. It wasn’t easy to leave behind because Clint still, truly, loves her. It’s not so strong anymore, the feeling of adoration. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it sometimes. </p><p>He sighs and folds the letters together, then goes to lay on his bed. His feet ache and his head pounds in tandem. Salem is Salem and Weymouth is Weymouth. Neither of them are home and America may never feel like the fields of England and the bustling streets of Paris. It's hard to find the balance. He's not sure they ever will.</p><p>He closes his eyes and slips into sleep, thinking of the letter that he'll send back to Natasha and the words he won't tell her yet.</p><p>-</p><p>Clint counts eleven more days. On the twelfth he wakes with a chill he can't shake and goes to work with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The hours tick by and he waits impatiently for the mail. His legs ache; he rubs his thighs and feels little relief. The weather is different in America and he still finds himself adjusting to it, working out old kinks that he's sure will never fully heal. Even in the sun, when he feels himself warm from the inside out, he carries the English winter with him.</p><p>The mail is late. Yelena sends a terrible drawing of Liho in with Natasha's letter and he sets it against the windowsill before turning the remaining paper over in his hands. He tells himself he doesn't hesitate out of fear that she's changed her mind about what she said, even though he wouldn't entirely blame her for it. There's a lot more than just roads and miles between them now.</p><p>
  <em> Nothing has changed. You would know, too, I suppose. You're still there and I'm still here. I might as well just tell you now, at the beginning. That way if I never see you again I can pretend that it's not on my mind. I regret it. I regret letting you go, back then, for fear of the unknown. I think we could have made it. I know that you think that as well, because there's something undeniably alive between us. You can feel it, Clint. I know you can. And I needed to say it. Please remember that you are my best and only true friend, before anything else. But I love you all the same. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Now. I can hardly see in this light. Yelena and Liho have become acquaintances, and she drags the poor thing around with her wherever she goes. She is happy, even when she's mad. I've been holding on to the light of her to keep myself from sinking. That's another story for another day—don't you worry about it. We're doing fine. Yelena has always been exactly the person I needed, so I'm thankful that she doesn't want to leave too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That sounded far harsher than I intended. A woman was arrested yesterday for witchcraft, though the proof is non-existent. People still avoid us on the street. I know that I told you they were fascinated with my hair, but I'm starting to think it might be fear. We're not worried, so you shouldn't be either. I think it's just some silly girls playing games. Yelena wants to watch the trial but I'm unsure if we should. That's all the news I have for you. I'll keep you informed of the outcome. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And Clint—you don't need to say anything. I had to tell you once. I hope you understand. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Natasha </em>
</p><p>Clint reads the letter again, and then a third time just to be sure. His hands shake around his own quill as he thinks of every possible thing he could say back to her. Confessions are rare and he takes this one in both hands, cradles it like a newborn. He needs her. He's always needed her.</p><p><em> I love you too </em> , he writes. <em> I've loved you this whole time and I couldn't tell you. I pretended it was nothing when it was really my whole world. You're my friend too, Natasha, and that's more important than anything else. I've waited two centuries. </em></p><p>He scrunches the paper up and throws it into the fire. The flames engulf it and he lets out a breath, long and deep; the type of breath that forces him to clear his head. He reads the letter a fourth time and focuses on anything other than the secret she's laid bare. He picks up the quill and writes nothing of what he really wanted to say, but it's easier to ignore it in the end.</p><p>He writes, <em> do I need to come home? </em></p><p>Three days later he receives his reply on a scrap piece of paper, the edges frayed from where it's been torn from the page. Her answer is as loud as if she had shouted it. Two letters for two centuries.</p><p><em> No </em>.</p><p>-</p><p>Clint's bad feeling doesn't leave him. Natasha still writes, and Yelena too when she has something to complain about, and for the most part things go back to normal. Clint works, Clint eats, Clint sleeps; sometimes he dreams of Natasha's first death, except he never wakes up before the axe strikes his neck. There's no pain, but he doesn't think there needs to be. Her fear was tangible.</p><p>There's forty strikes above the door when he grows bored of Weymouth. He packs his things into one bag and gets ready to be gone by the end of the week. Salem calls in a way that it hasn't before and he wonders if it only has to do with the woman he left behind there. The woman who poured her heart out to him on a simple piece of paper and didn't receive anything from him in return.</p><p>Before he does leave he receives one last letter, though it's unlike any others she's sent. The paper is torn, the ink smudged; he reads the few words she has scribbled down hastily and boards the next carriage without bothering to collect his bag or bow. His palms sweat and smudges the ink some more so that her words mark his skin, seeping into his very being.</p><p>
  <em> Come home. We need help. Yelena arrested. Witchcraft. </em>
</p><p>-</p><p>Salem is eerie when he finally arrives. He goes straight to their house, remembering the path there out of pure stubbornness and a sense of stomach-twisting dread. There's a flyer on the door that he rips off and when he opens it the house is empty. Everything has been left as though it's going to be returned to; he sees Natasha's cloak, thrown over the back of a chair, and Yelena's comb discarded on the table.</p><p>His next stop is the courtroom, but that too is empty. He doesn't see one other person until he steps outside again, heart pounding in his chest. A child runs past him, down the road and towards Gallows Hill. His mouth dries. He runs before he even really knows what he's running towards.</p><p>It doesn't take him long to find them. Natasha and Yelena both hang from the tree, bodies still swinging from the force of the fall. It makes bile rise in his throat even though he knows what will happen next. The unnatural angle of Natasha's neck, the green-tinged sheen to Yelena's forehead: it all looks too real.</p><p>When they come to, gasping around the nooses that still constrict their airways, the crowd that has gathered erupts into hysteria. Clint is shoved—and shoves back—as he tries to reach them, but someone beats him to it. Their bodies hit the ground, the rope is removed; Yelena starts to sob and Natasha reaches for her awkwardly, hands bound tightly behind her back.</p><p>"Witches!" Someone screams. A chant rings out around him and he fights the urge to cover his ears. <em> Human</em>, <em> you're only human</em>. "Take off their heads!"</p><p>"No," Natasha chokes, the sound so fearful that he can almost taste it. Her hands clench into fists behind her back as she tries to scramble away from the men that yank her up by her arms. "No, please no. I'll do anything."</p><p>"Confess," one man sneers, and Natasha hangs her head as they laugh in her face.</p><p>"<em>Please </em>. We're not guilty."</p><p>Yelena is pulled to her feet too, and then they're being marched through the crowd, dodging the things that are tossed at them from the villagers. He reaches out and touches Natasha's arm, and when she looks up at him the bruises on her neck are still fading.</p><p>He can't think of anything else to say except, "Natasha."</p><p>"Clint," she whispers, and it sounds like a breath of hope. "Clint, Yelena—"</p><p>Clint falls sideways, barely catching himself as someone knocks him away from her. By the time he's recovered they're gone, halfway back to the town with the crowd trailing behind them. He turns and stares at the rope discarded on the ground. He won't forget the image of them there, hanging amongst the branches on their own, for as long as he lives. </p><p>-</p><p>He talks his way into the jail cell. Natasha and Yelena are chained to the wall, the heavy iron cuffs pulling their arms towards the ground and keeping their legs still. He sits on the other side of the bars and reaches his hand through until he can just grip onto the end of Natasha's fingers. Her smile is thin in the dim light, her face shadowed with dirt. Yelena appears over her shoulder like a ghost and he watches tears pool in her eyes.</p><p>"They're burning us tomorrow," she whispers. "I've never been burnt before. What do you think it will feel like, Natka?"</p><p>"Excruciatingly painful," Natasha replies softly. "And then it will be just like going to sleep."</p><p>Yelena nods and a tear slips down her cheek. Clint can't stretch himself far enough to reach her but he longs to offer her comfort. Despite her age, despite the years she's been forced to live, she's still just a girl. A girl who shouldn't be here, in this cell or this century. She holds her quivering chin high and Clint has never admired anyone more.</p><p>"Can you go first?"</p><p>Natasha shakes her head, her hair a knot of curls hanging heavily down her back. "You don't want to watch me die like that, honey."</p><p>Yelena looks like she might say something else and then reconsiders, resting her head against Natasha's shoulder instead. She doesn't cry anymore, and he senses the resignation that settles over her. In the morning they will burn, and there's not a thing he can do to stop it.</p><p>"I'll get you out," he says anyway. Lying in the face of death seems as good of an excuse as any. "I'll break you out."</p><p>The guard that's been assigned to their cell coughs. Clint glares at him even though he can't see it, because he's standing idly by while two women await their deaths, and that should be enough to make people do <em> something</em>. And yet he watches, keeps his hand on the matchlock by his side; doesn't look back at them so he can go home to his family and leave it all behind him. Clint hates him. Clint could kill him.</p><p>"Don't," Natasha says. Of course she knows, she's the only one who's ever known. Her fingers twitch in his and he squeezes a little tighter. "We can get out of this another way."</p><p>"What happens when you keep coming back to life?" He says lowly. "What then, Natasha? If anything, it's proving what they think."</p><p>"They don't think anything," she hisses. "They're so obsessed with finding something that's not even there that they can't see the truth. A man accused Yelena because she was talking to Liho on the walk home. They thought—"</p><p>"It was a familiar" he finishes. It settles, then, the realisation that their very existence is working against them. "God, how <em> idiotic</em>."</p><p>"It was my hair," Natasha says. There's a new kind of sadness on her features, one he hasn't seen before. A hollowness that tells him more than words ever will. "I should have known."</p><p>"Devil hair," Yelena murmurs around a yawn. Clint's not sure how she can fall asleep chained to a wall but she does, head pressed beside Natasha's. Their legs entwine and the dust settles on their skin. Small comforts have never been so hard to come by; he rubs his thumb over the back of Natasha's hand and ignores the way it shakes.</p><p>"They've hung us three times now, as though it will change anything. I've never been burnt alive either."</p><p>Clint frowns. "Your letter was late."</p><p>"I didn't expect it to arrive at all." She shrugs her free shoulder and offers him a wry smile. "Though witch trials don't seem to take much time at all. Four women have already died."</p><p>"This is barbaric," he manages to grit out between his clenched teeth. "I should—"</p><p>"Stay," Natasha interrupts. "Please. Stay with us."</p><p>The guard finally looks at them. Clint feels the fight leave his body in the wake of her plea, and he makes himself comfortable beside the bars. He doesn't want to leave them. He doesn't want to watch them set alight, burning for something they had no hand in. He wants to kick something or punch someone. He does neither and considers it a personal win.</p><p>"You can't stay here," the guard says. "They have to be moved."</p><p>Clint doesn't have much, but the money hidden inside his boot is readily accepted. "They can be moved in the morning."</p><p>The guard turns around. Clint presses his forehead against the bars and feels Natasha do the same. Forehead to forehead, eye to eye; he thinks about telling her how much he still loves her. Then the moment passes, and she moves away, and he can't help but think that they'll spend the rest of eternity that way.</p><p>-</p><p>Natasha and Yelena scream when the flames engulf their bodies. Clint covers his ears and forces himself to watch. It lasts hours, until the fire dies down and they can be retrieved from the ashes. Yelena smiles at him and he marvels at her resilience. When he tries to follow them he's stopped and they disappear into the back of a different building.</p><p>"You can't associate yourself with them," the boy says, keeping one hand on Clint's arm as though it will stop him. He's hit someone for less.</p><p>"Don't tell me what I can and cannot do," he snaps, wrenching his arm away. "Where are they taking them?"</p><p>The boy lets him go. When he looks at Clint there's no judgement, just pity. "To a stone cell. There's no windows."</p><p>Natasha will hate it. Yelena will go insane without the sun on her face. Clint sighs and scrubs a hand over his head, feeling grit and dirt stick to his cheeks. Some of it might be the ashes from the bodies that were forced to burn over and over again. The thought makes his stomach churn and he spits onto the grass, tasting bile.</p><p>"They're not witches," he says. "It's a God-damn <em> cat </em>. It's not illegal to own a cat."</p><p>"The girl was talking to it. I think they just needed an excuse. They had it killed too."</p><p>Liho. Clint never much cared for the scruffy stray, but Natasha had adored him. Yelena, too, if the letters are anything to go by. He pushes the thought from his head, knowing that if they don't know then he'll be the one to tell them.</p><p>"I need to get them out of there," Clint says softly. "You don't understand. They just—"</p><p>"Have a habit of coming back to life? Sounds awfully witchy to me." The boy holds out his hand and Clint shakes it hesitantly, unable to place his tone. "I'm Peter, by the way. My mum was hung too, but she actually died."</p><p>"Sorry, kid," Clint says. "All of it's just..."</p><p>"I know," Peter agrees solemnly. "There's not much you can do though, sir."</p><p>There is, and Clint is already thinking of exactly how he'll get them out of the chains around their wrists. There might be bloodshed and for the first time in centuries he's ready to wade into battle again. His fingers itch for his bow; all it will take is one arrow, one distraction to get them out.</p><p>"Stone?" He asks, and at Peter's nod starts to walk away, back towards the house the three of them had shared for far too little time. "Thank you."</p><p>The house is empty, not that he expected anything else, but it still hurts. He leaves everything as they had left it and only uses the wash tub to scrub at his skin until he's sure the ash-grey powder is no longer covering him with guilt. He lies down to sleep only to ensure that his head is clear for the morning. He doesn't dream. If he did, he might have had more warning.</p><p>When he wakes the next day the town is empty. He runs back to Gallow Hill, following screams that sound feral. It reminds him of a wounded animal that knows it's about to die, and he bursts through the crowd expecting to see Yelena sobbing before her inevitable death. Instead, his heart stops. Natasha, thrashing on the ground, doesn't even notice his presence.</p><p>It takes five men to wrangle her towards the stump and the executioner. She screams herself hoarse, limbs a flurry of movement as she tries to escape their hands. When her voice fades she just cries and he feels it, then. The pain of an axe striking a neck.</p><p>"Please, please no," she whispers. A hand pushes between her shoulder blades and she goes down, chin smacking the edge of the tree stump. The whole of her being is behind her words when she says, softly, "Please not again."</p><p>He doesn't even see Yelena. All he sees is Natasha, her vibrant hair hanging in her face as she kneels at the feet of a man dressed in black. There's no warning, just the swing of the axe, the thud of it hitting the stump. Her body falls sideways and her blood is <em> so red </em>, and he knows it doesn't take as long as it did the first time. But still. It takes longer than any death Clint's experienced.</p><p>There's no relief when she finally opens her eyes. She panics and strikes out, connecting with the nose of the executioner who had been kneeling beside her to watch the process. There's still blood on her neck, blood in her hair; when she looks at him she doesn't really see him, her mind lost somewhere in the past.</p><p>"Natka," Yelena says. "Look at me."</p><p>Clint steps forward to grab Yelena, ready to run. She digs her heels in and turns to him, and the expression on her face stops him from trying anything. It tells him, <em> I'm not leaving without her. She needs us, Clint. We can't leave her right now. </em></p><p>He wants to argue. He wants to tell her that she's making a mistake. They can come back for Natasha as a team and free the other women while they're at it. It's simple, and Clint likes simple. It's also the only thing he's been able to think of that might actually work.</p><p>"Move!" A guard shouts, shoving Yelena away from him roughly. She goes with just a hint of sass and Clint loves her for it. Natasha is much slower, her gaze focused on the ground. He follows them all the way to the cell and pays the same guard again the last of his money to be let in. There's no bars, just stone walls and a tiny slither of light. He sits beside Yelena and pulls her in for a hug.</p><p>"Is this because you feel sorry for me?" She asks.</p><p>He smiles against her hair. "No. I missed you, is all."</p><p>Natasha shuffles away from them, the chains around her ankles startlingly loud in the small space. She curls her arms around herself and rests her head on her knees, staring at the wall. Once he might have joked with her about it. He doesn't when he sees her trembling.</p><p>"Are you okay?" He calls to her. "Natasha? It's over."</p><p>She doesn't answer. He gives her the time she needs and focuses on Yelena. The girl is quiet too, and he's not sure which hurts more; her resigned acceptance or Natasha's raw pain.</p><p>"How much longer?" Yelena says eventually. "I'm tired of dying. I don't like Salem anymore."</p><p>"I'm trying," he whispers. "It's not as easy as I thought. Unless I put a knife through everyone's hearts."</p><p>"You could do that," she sniffles. "I wouldn't mind."</p><p>He laughs. It sounds like a sob. "God, Yelena. I wish I could do that and mean it."</p><p>He sits with them for another hour, and then the guard lets him out into the crisp afternoon. Natasha hadn't moved from her position in the corner and he leaves with a promise to bring Yelena a flower tomorrow. He's not sure where to go next, so wanders aimlessly, thinking of anything other than Natasha's head rolling away from her body.</p><p>He could steal the keys to the iron chains if he knew where they were. He spends some time in the Sheriff's office, talking to the men and pretending for all the world like he supports the torture they’re inflicting on the women. He watches a trial and tries to take the keys then before realising that not even the Sheriff has them. His second plan fails and he feels each second ticking away like a knife to the heart.</p><p>Peter is waiting for him after the trial. Another woman condemned to hang; they schedule it for the following week and he tries to overhear the conversation between the judge and the guards. He can't be sure so he leaves it behind and focuses on his own problems.</p><p>"How do you know them?"</p><p>Peter falls into step beside him. Clint's well on his way to massacring the entire town and doesn't want the company. Peter is a lot like Pietro had been, though: stubborn as a mule and too friendly for his own good.</p><p>"Old friends," he settles on. "Why?"</p><p>"Who would you choose, if you had to?" Peter glances at him nervously and a strange kind of feeling settles over Clint's body. "Is there one in—"</p><p>"No," Clint says immediately. "I would never pick one over the other. Why?"</p><p>"No reason," Peter says. "I was just curious. No one else really comes forward in the defence of the accused."</p><p>"If more people did then we might not have this problem. There a reason you're following me?"</p><p>"You’re different," he announces. "You treat people differently. You look at that woman with such wonder. Is she your wife?"</p><p>"No." </p><p>He isn’t lying when he says that he’s never thought of marrying Natasha because whatever they have—<em> had</em>, he corrects mentally–is more than a vow that doesn’t mean anything. Death will not part them, nor sickness: he doesn’t see the point in consolidating it like that when it would always be more.</p><p>"Oh," Peter says, cheeks heating in embarrassment. He stops walking and waves to Clint's back. "Are you sure you don't know who you would choose?"</p><p>"You couldn't pay me to choose," he reiterates. "Why?"</p><p>But Peter's already gone before he can give an answer, and Clint goes back home with a sinking feeling in his stomach that threatens to pull him under.</p><p>-</p><p>Something is wrong. Clint feels it the second he wakes up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed before his body is fully awake. His knees buckle and he hits the ground, hard; it jolts enough sense into him that he can hear shouting from outside, and when he glances out the window he can make out another crowd down by the building that houses the stone cells.</p><p>He pulls his boots on and runs, knife clutched in his hand. <em> Just in case</em>, he tells himself, though he knows it's futile. His plan to tear through Salem was never going to work and all he needs is a little more time. Bribing guards has already worked twice and he's willing to push his luck a third time. Either that, or they wait for the public to grow tired of the spectacle and let them go.</p><p>By the time Clint pushes his way through the crowd the doors have been flung open. Natasha and Yelena squint against the sudden light, bodies tense from where they're pushed against the wall. He makes eye contact with Natasha and her lips twitch up, her features lit with hope. It's the knife, he realises. She thinks he's come to break them out.</p><p>And then.</p><p>And then two men walk in, yanking Yelena up from under her arms. The chains drop from her ankles and her wrists follow suit; she has a half a second to look at Natasha before they're dragging her away. Natasha lunges forward, arms yanking behind her as she strains against her bonds, and then Yelena starts to scream, and then Clint sees the cause of her distress.</p><p>The iron maiden is big. Yelena is small.</p><p>"Natalia!" She cries, kicking her legs in a desperate bid to escape. "Natalia, help me! Don't let me go. Don't let me go!"</p><p>"Drop her!" Natasha screams. Blood drips from her wrists and hits the ground. She pulls harder but nothing gives. "Yelena! Where are you taking her?"</p><p>"You're too powerful together." A priest steps forward, crucifix held out towards Natasha. "For creatures such as you there is no salvation."</p><p>"No!" Yelena sobs. Her eyes meet his and she throws her body forward to try and reach him. "Clint, help me!"</p><p>He moves, but someone grabs his arm. He shakes it off and is only grabbed again, harder this time. He spins with raised fists and comes face to face with Peter, who looks regretful. Peter, who asked him who he would choose.</p><p>"You didn't have to say it," he says softly. "I knew you would pick her."</p><p>Natasha's cries ring in his ears. He yanks himself free and steps after Yelena. She spits and snarls right until the end, when they shove her body into the iron maiden and lock it tight. He sees her eyes through the gap, wild with fear. Another thing he'll be cursed to remember for eternity.</p><p>"No!" Natasha wails. He can't face her; he forces himself to follow the progression away from the cells, staying close to the side of the huge casket. They leave the building and Natasha's cries behind and roll towards the docks. He tries to tear open the lock but he's not strong enough.</p><p>"Clint," Yelena says, her voice echoing from within her prison. "I'm scared. Where am I going?"</p><p>"It's okay," he lies. It's getting too easy to lie now. "We'll get you out of here. It'll all be fine. Okay?"</p><p>"Why can't Natka come?" She asks. "Why don't they believe us?"</p><p>Clint doesn't have an answer for her. He leaves her side only to jog towards the head of the procession, where the priest and the Sheriff speak in low tones between themselves. He could do it, then. He could send the knife into the back of their skulls and no one would know any different.</p><p>Except, he might be tried then. He might be tried for murder or witchcraft or whatever else they want to pin on him just to have an excuse to watch him hang. If he does that, then he'll be no help at all. If he does nothing, though—if he stands by and doesn't try, at the very least—then he won't be able to live with himself.</p><p>"Excuse me," he says, reigning in the anger that burns so deeply inside him. "What's happening?"</p><p>"We're removing one of them, to weaken their powers," the priest explains. "Aren't you the man that lived with them?"</p><p>Clint nods. "Yes. They're not witches."</p><p>"They don't die," the Sheriff spits. "Explain that."</p><p>Clint can't, and that's what hurts most of all. "Look, just let the girl go and—"</p><p>"The decision has been made," the priest interrupts. "You helped make it."</p><p>He stops walking. "What?"</p><p>"The boy told us there was a preference for the redhead. If we have a chance of redeeming her then we will certainly try our best. But the girl is too dangerous."</p><p>"She's just a girl," he protests weakly. "I didn't make any decision. I could never <em> choose</em>."</p><p>"It's done," the Sheriff says. There's a finality to his words that shows that he means it, and Clint realises that there's not much else he can do. He pulls out the knife, aims his throw. By the time he notices where they are it's already too late.</p><p>He sees Yelena's eyes, bright, fierce. Her lips move, too, and he hears the words like some forgotten dream. He wants to wake up. He wants to go home.</p><p>"Clint. Clint, help me. You said you would get me out. I want it to stop. I want Natka. I'm <em> scared. </em>Please."</p><p>He can't force his mouth to form any reassurances. Not in a place like this; a place that is the closest he's ever come to Hell, and it feels like a dead end. He can't move forward. He can't make himself get closer to her again, because Yelena's fate is sealed inside the iron maiden with her. He watches it hoisted onto a ship, watches some kind of realisation set in her eyes.</p><p>Because he knows what will happen next, and she does, too. Iron sinks, and there's more ocean out there than any of them can even begin to know. He breathes in and it gets caught in his throat, something of a sob that he can't let escape. She does, and her screams lodge themselves somewhere deep inside of him. He'll carry it for centuries. It's the least he can do when her worst fear has come true.</p><p>She'll drown, over and over again. He just hopes that one of her breaths down there will be her last.</p><p>-</p><p>It takes another week for him to get Natasha out. He begs on the street, sells whatever's left of his soul to some higher power every day while she's marched to her execution, until he has enough of a bribe to buy her freedom. She doesn't speak and he doesn't blame her. The hole that Yelena left is gaping.</p><p>He helps her inside. The dirt that coats her skin is made up of the ash from her own burning body. He undresses her slowly, and she lets him, and that's perhaps the most terrifying part of it all. When he pushes her hair to the side he sees for the first time the scar that she's spent a thousand years hiding. There's dried blood caught there, too, still red after all this time; it looks almost as though he imagines it did for her then. He wonders if she had picked herself up with the same sense of loss that she wears now.</p><p>"Do you mind?" He asks her. The slightest shake of her head is the only answer he gets, so he reaches for a mug and washcloth. She shivers and he pushes the tub closer to the fire before helping her in. "I'll be as quick as I can."</p><p>He doesn't try to keep track of the time. It's too raw to measure in seconds or minutes, so he just focuses on scrubbing the grit from her skin and counts down from ten only when he needs to pour more water. She stares at the flames and he finally finds pale flesh after the third time he sweeps the washcloth over her back. It aches to see the pain that's written across her body even though there are no physical marks anymore.</p><p>"We can find her," Natasha says eventually. Her voice is soft, cheek pressed against her knees. He's untangling knots at the end of her hair, working through a clump that might actually contain a part of her skull. "We can look."</p><p>"Of course we'll look," he says with more confidence than he feels. "We're not forgetting about her."</p><p>"I should have tried harder," she whispers. "I should have realised or done <em> something</em>, anything—"</p><p>Clint had returned to the cell to find Natasha on her own, wrists gouged by the chains and shoulders dislocated from the force with which she'd been trying to escape. He had moved her back against the wall, pushed her arms into place and watched the deep wounds slowly stitch themselves back together. Her blood had stained the floor. He'd made it five steps home before he'd been sick.</p><p>"There was nothing—" He swallows and moves to the front of the tub, trying to meet her gaze. "It happened so quickly, Natasha. I just needed more time. Or I should have put a knife through everyone's head."</p><p>Once, she might have smiled. "You wouldn't do that. You're too good."</p><p>
  <em> Not good enough to save Yelena. Not good enough to save either of them, because even though Natasha hadn't been condemned to an eternity underwater, she had been forced to live in the aftermath, and he wasn't sure what was worse. </em>
</p><p>"It would have saved her," he says. "I just wasn't fast enough."</p><p>"I miss her, Clint."</p><p>One week feels like a lifetime. If he thinks about it he tastes bile, and he can't afford to let his regret sit too long on his shoulders. He misses her, too; misses the light she had brought into the house without even trying, the love she had so selflessly shared with him before she even really knew him. He misses the three of them, together. Weymouth feels distant but he'll never forget the decision that led to them being broken open.</p><p>"I do too," he says. Natasha shakes and it has nothing to do with the temperature of the water. He throws his common sense out the window and steps into the tub with her, still fully clothed. The water is black from dirt but he doesn't care. He's alive; he can hold Natasha and mean it, and that's all he needs. "It's okay. We'll find her."</p><p>He doesn't know who starts crying first, but then Natasha howls, so he does, too. She moves in the small tub, sloshing water over the sides, and he lets her crawl onto his lap. When she kisses him their tears mix together. He cups her cheek with one hand and kisses her back just as fiercely, deepens it until his head swims and he forgets, briefly, about the pain that he feels thrumming under his skin.</p><p>They don't fuck in the tub. They don't fuck at all, though Natasha tries. He helps her re-dress and settles her in bed, and she keeps her arms around his neck when he pulls away to make something of a meal with whatever food is left in the house. He wants to crawl into bed with her and stay there for years, because they have years; they have years to do nothing but hold each other, if they wanted to, and it's an appealing enough image that he considers it for a second longer than he might have before. He can't when they're both like this, though.</p><p>"Sleep, Natasha," he tells her gently. He doesn't think she's slept since they took Yelena away. He knows that he hasn't, his dreams plagued with her face once more. "I'll be here."</p><p>She regards him with eyes that make it look like she doesn't trust him, but then she closes them anyway. Her body sinks; he sees the exact second the tension leaves her and hears the sigh that is pulled from between her lips. He watches for a long time. It feels like the least he can do.</p><p>Outside the world returns to normal. Clint has enough leftover money to maybe save one more woman, though his stance against violence has taken a right turn out the window now and he's not opposed to doing what he originally said he would. When Natasha wakes he knows that she'll wear her vengeance like armour and figures that whatever she wants she'll get, one way or the other. They'll outlive the people of Salem just like they outlive everyone else. He should have done it before, and yet—</p><p>And yet he hadn't thought that he could. There's a difference between charging into battle and shooting someone for a belief, and the belief was wrong, he knows, but still. He could have burst in and shot the priest, shot the Sheriff, and then he would have had everyone else, and he's not so sure what would have happened next. Yelena had said she was afraid of not being invincible, of missing out on a world of wonder. Clint's afraid of the unknown, of what comes after whatever decision he's forced to make. He's afraid of losing Natasha, so selfishly afraid that he can barely admit it to himself.</p><p>Clint makes dinner for them and then spends hours drawing pictures from memory by the candlelight. He remembers the ship. He remembers the look on Yelena's face, the sound that Natasha had made. He remembers the blood and the fire and the axe hitting her neck, remembers it all until he's clawing at his hair to make it stop. Maybe his curse isn't living forever after all. Maybe it's being forced to replay memories like this, over and over, unable to forget the details that caused so much pain.</p><p>Maybe it's Yelena's curse, too.</p><p>-</p><p>Salem becomes them. Natasha sleeps the day away and wakes with a new fire in her eyes. Her pain fuels her; he's reminded of Wanda cutting down trees before she even really knew <em> why </em>she was cutting them down. He claws his way back to Weymouth and gets them a new start there, and when he comes back to collect her Natasha has sliced her way straight through the heart of the town.</p><p>The priest is gone. Clint can tell from the look on her face that she's done what he couldn't. What he <em> wouldn't</em>, though it doesn't make a difference. He's gone and Natasha still doesn't know exactly where Yelena is, so they pack their things and leave. If they set the courtroom on fire before they go then that’s their business. </p><p>His room in Weymouth is exactly as he left it. Natasha sits at the table and looks over his drawings for the fifth or sixth time. They haven’t found the ship and he’s not sure they ever will, but it doesn’t stop her from visiting the docks in the dark of the night. She goes and he waits like clockwork, like the only thing that's keeping track of their time now is the thought of Yelena drowning for eternity. She comes back and kisses him, and he kisses her, too, until the letters mean nothing anymore; until she doesn't have to say her regrets out loud because he shares them with her, and in their pain they start to heal. It takes weeks. It takes months of searching the entire West Coast like she'll just step out and tell them it was all a joke.</p><p>And it takes years. The deck of a ship becomes their second home, and when night falls and they hold each other, with the sound of the sea rushing around them, they swear they can hear her voice calling them from somewhere deep below.</p><p>-</p><p>There are universal truths. They search for fifty years; nothing changes except the world around them, and Clint's not entirely sure when they eventually stop looking. If it's a choice he's not the one to make it. Natasha doesn't let him touch her neck when they're in bed so he strokes a finger down her cheek instead, tangles a hand in her hair. It's love that he gives her and love he receives in kind. They don't move on, but they make something more of themselves.</p><p>He wades into war with her more times than he can count. He adores her and he can say it now. He tells her <em> it was always you </em>and she rolls her eyes like it doesn’t mean anything, except that it does. They fall and don’t catch themselves on the way down. Old habits die hard, so when his palms itch and she stays, it feels a little like coming home.</p><p>They live in Constantinople and Jerusalem and London. Natasha teaches him Italian and Greek and New French. They help orphans in Spain when war tears through the country, and then do it again ten times over. War doesn't change, he realises. It takes more than it has to give and they're left to pick up the pieces. It's like bodies in a field or his bones crushing only to grow back together again, a little stronger than before.</p><p>Living forever doesn't seem so daunting now with her by his side. They build their foundations together and live to watch regimes fall. Natasha brings home a dictionary and he doesn't make it past the first page. <em> I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth</em>, Samuel Johnson writes, <em> and that things are the sons of heaven</em>. Clint likes plumbing and toilets that flush and beer that doesn't taste like piss. Natasha likes the idea of a submarine and flies into a rage when she learns of the guillotine. He doesn't touch her neck, but he touches her breast, her thigh, the warm expanse of her belly.</p><p>Russia lasts a summer before it grows too cold. A smallpox vaccination is invented and they start searching for Yelena again. Natasha carries a sadness in those months that not even his kisses can conquer. It's his decision to stop this time and she holds his hand the whole way home. He loves her, more than anything, more than being allowed to die or growing old; he loves her like every day is new and beautiful, and when she dies in Scotland it still makes his blood go cold.</p><p><em> One hundred and thirteen</em>, she whispers to him, watching her intestines fold back into her body. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes; if it's a competition she's after he has no chance of winning. Twenty-three becomes twenty-four when he accidentally strays too close to a poisonous octopus at the beach in Japan, and waking up to Natasha's laughter is almost enough to make twenty-four turn to twenty-five.</p><p>They're happy. They're <em> more </em> than happy and it's not something that Clint ever expected. He calls her Nat, Tasha; he doesn't change his name but she'll sometimes sigh <em> Clinton </em> on the back of a moan and he thinks it's the closest he'll ever come to holiness. They go back to Kiddington and he finally loses the weight that's hung so heavily on his shoulders for centuries. The past still stings though the bite is not as brilliant as it once was.</p><p>News reaches them across the ocean of two women from Salem who didn't die even when burnt, so Clint goes there for the first time since they left and scours the records for anything that mentions them, until he has a stack of articles and six drawings to tear up and throw in the ocean. It's cathartic and eases some of the ache, and he hopes, selfishly, that Yelena will sense some kind of retribution.</p><p>He writes Natasha whilst he's there, staying in a hotel across from the site where their house had once stood. There's not much left of the original town, or maybe he just doesn't remember it as well as he thought he did. He presses a rose between the folds of the paper and seals it with wax that's as red as the dress they bought Yelena a lifetime ago.</p><p>
  <em> It's done. There was more than I expected there to be. I threw it all in the ocean which felt stupid and childish. Nothing and everything has changed but I'm glad you didn't come. There's too much here—history or something. I don't know. Am I making sense Tasha? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You've always been better at writing and making it seem like you're speaking right to me. I don't know how you do it. In the name of being candid I thought that I might write to you anyway, even though I'll see you in New York soon enough. Being in Salem has made me remember things that I'd been steadfastly ignoring. Yelena, being the main one. I miss her. I know you miss her, and I know you blame yourself for it. There was nothing we could do that we didn't try, and it hurts to think... I guess I should have just shot everyone. I'll regret that for the rest of eternity. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What I'm trying to say... This is harder than it looks. Last time I was here I didn't know what to say, either. You confessed a love I felt but was too afraid to reciprocate just in case. I'm sure you understand. Just in case it doesn't work, just in case fate has other ideas. You know fate, right, Tasha? It's what led you to me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I've been thinking about that too. How I felt on my own, wandering around by myself, unsure if any part of my soul was still attached to my body. It didn't feel like it, but I know now. Half was yours. It's always been yours. Our souls are the same, or at the very least, two halves of the same. I can say this kind of thing to you now and not feel a fool. Do you think anyone else would know what I'm talking about? You might think it's nonsense. I know that I did, at first. But it's true. I can only ever be truthful with you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm writing this because I miss you too. It hasn't been long since I left but the days drag. I'm not sure how I ever used to do it on my own. I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore. I'll see you soon. New York. Until then I will wander, waiting for our souls to meet again. It's sentimental, Nat. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I love you. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>When he sees her next in New York her hair is long and she kisses him in the middle of Longacre square. <em> Love you too </em>, she whispers in his ear. It will be another year before Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes about soulmates, but Clint and Natasha already know what it means when he says forever.</p><p>-</p><p>
  <b>Brooklyn, New York</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1910</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Electricity takes some getting used to. They still light candles and sit in the flickering shadows they create, remembering when the world was quieter. New York is busy, even more so than Paris or London had ever been. Clint flicks a switch and watches the light catch the shadows in Natasha's eyes. Outside the window the world turns; pants gain zippers and pictures move and people fly. It's getting a little harder to catch up now.</p><p>He's sitting in the kitchen of an apartment that has more rooms than any of the houses he ever lived in before. Natasha lays on the couch with a magazine, her legs the only part of her visible from where he sits. There's a pot of soup simmering on the stovetop and a Tolstoy book on the table. Natasha's read all of them and still pushes them under his nose when he's complaining about the news in the paper.</p><p>He hears her sigh. He looks up from where he's been applying lacquer to his bow, the bow that he's carried for more years than he cares to count now. Yelena's is in the cupboard with an unspoken <em> just in case </em> hanging in the air above it. Natasha shifts and the couch springs squeak. The apartment is large but sound travels. Another thing that he's still adjusting to.</p><p>"Okay?" He calls to her.</p><p>She sighs again. "This article is annoying."</p><p>"Stop reading it then," he says. "You can just shut the magazine Tash. The words won't follow you."</p><p>She gets up and joins him in the kitchen, sitting on the chair opposite him. One of her feet comes up to rest on his thigh and he rolls his eyes, setting the lacquer aside. She's never been subtle and hundreds of years in his presence won't change that.</p><p>"I know, but it was disturbing." She leans back, folds her arms over her chest. "Families forced to choose between children."</p><p>"Oh?" He raises an eyebrow at her. "Anything we can do?"</p><p>"No," she huffs. "It's old news that's just made its way to the big city. War and famine, but to have to <em>choose</em> —"</p><p>"Not a nice thought. Not a nice feeling, either."</p><p>Natasha looks at him. He can't pick the expression that crosses her features and feels stupid for it. He knows her. He knows her almost as well as he knows himself, and she doesn’t look at him like that anymore. Like she doesn’t know <em> him </em>. </p><p>"You say that like you know what it feels like," she says eventually. </p><p>Clint realises his mistake a second too late. A memory slams into him, suddenly, of a boy asking him a question he had no answer for except for the one that had been written plain as day across his face. </p><p>"Not really," he shrugs. "Everyone has to make hard choices, Nat."</p><p>"Not this kind" she replies. "Are you not telling me something?"</p><p>She’s always been able to read him, and despite years of practise at perfecting his poker face he can’t help but be truthful with her. He should have told her a long time ago, but at the time it hadn’t been important, and then. And then they had moved on, or at the very least tried to, and he had forgotten about the decision that had gotten them here. </p><p>"I don’t know what you want me to say," he says carefully. Natasha pulls her foot away and sits up straight, and he thinks, <em> okay, we’re doing this. </em>"I don’t know what you think right now."</p><p>"I think that you haven’t been truthful," she says. "How many years, Clint, have we been together? How many years have you kept this from me?"</p><p>He knows exactly how many. Instead he says, "What do you think happened?"</p><p>"You chose me over her," Natasha says softly. Her face crumples; it’s not a sight he’ll soon forget. "I know everything about you and—there’s never been anyone else. Tell me I’m wrong."</p><p>"I didn’t choose," he defends, which is probably the wrong thing to say. "They asked me to. I couldn’t do it, Tasha. How could I do that?"</p><p>"Then why is she gone and I’m here?"</p><p>Her voice is thunderous even though she’s whispering. She stands and takes a step away from him, and the hurt that settles on her face hits him right in the gut. He stands too and tries to think of how he can possibly explain how quickly it all happened back then. For her, for <em> Yelena</em>, it would have felt like years trapped in Hell; chained in the dark, marched to their deaths every day with the force of a village pushing them along. For him it had felt like seconds between his arrival in Salem and Peter's hand on his arm, the look on his face. <em> You didn't have to say it. </em></p><p>"I don't know how to—"</p><p>"Just tell me the truth," she interrupts. "Why didn't they throw me into the ocean instead?"</p><p>"I didn't choose, okay?" He says, feeling some kind of frustrated desperation claw up his throat. He can't lose her, but he doesn't know what to say. "Please believe me. It was complicated and—"</p><p>"How complicated can it be? There were two of us in the cell—"</p><p>"—I was confused, I was just trying to <em> help</em>, and—"</p><p>"Then why isn't Yelena here?" Natasha spits. "Why is she at the bottom of the fucking ocean?"</p><p>"Because I didn't have to choose, in the end," Clint finally snaps. "Because I couldn't say it, but they knew. They knew it was you, Natasha. It's always you. I didn't have to say a fucking thing."</p><p>"You should have tried harder," she whispers. Her hands shake and she clenches them into fists. He tears his eyes away, swallows the guilt that's lodged itself in his throat. "I'm not worth saving, Clint."</p><p>"You don't understand," he says. "I didn't know it was happening until it happened. They asked me who I would pick and I couldn't... I couldn't <em> do </em>that. But they knew."</p><p>"This is why it could never work," Natasha says, and there's a finality to her tone that's unrecognisable. "This is what I feared."</p><p>Clint reaches a hand out to her, half a step away from pleading. He knows what comes next. He knows her. "We weren't together then. I didn't—"</p><p>"You had feelings for me. I wrote you those letters. I was so <em> stupid</em>."</p><p>He thinks of admitting that he loved her back then, too. That the look on his face was enough to convince a town that he was infatuated with her, that his world followed her orbit. Yelena had been caught in the path of something bigger than he will ever understand and the repercussions of it are still shaking his foundations.</p><p>"Would it have made a difference?" He asks. "If you knew that I loved you? If you knew that Yelena's fate had been decided and it was out of my control?"</p><p>"It wasn't out of your control," she says. "You lied to me, Clint."</p><p>"It didn't seem important. Natasha, <em> please</em>."</p><p>He moves towards her and watches her body move, tight as a coil. Her hand reaches under the table, pulls out one of a number of guns that she's taken to hiding around the apartment. He stops, because guns aren't what they used to be. Because Natasha's eyes are sharp and her intentions clear. Because he hurt her, deeply, more deeply than he ever could have predicted. Because Yelena was her family first, and he had watched her slip right through their fingers.</p><p>"I love you so much," she murmurs, gun trained at his chest. "I love you so much that this <em> hurts</em>, more than any one of my deaths. I trusted you. We spent years and years looking and you didn't even tell me."</p><p>"I'm sorry. I did what I thought was right and I can't... I can't change that now." He lets his arms fall to his sides, watches tears gather in the corners of her eyes. "I love you too. I didn't think it would lead to the end."</p><p>"I could live with it if you had just told me," she chokes. "It should have been me."</p><p>"No," Clint says, and it's the first time he's been genuinely honest with himself. "It could never have been you."</p><p>He could stop her. He sees the way her face sets and knows what will happen next. He's not sure if he deserves it, but he'll take her pain and wear it as his own. He might not see her again, and maybe he deserves that too. He made a mistake and it sits heavily like a second skin. <em> Selfish</em>, his mind screams at him. <em> So painfully human. </em></p><p>"I don't want to see you again," Natasha says.</p><p>Clint nods. He closes his eyes and imagines the world from five minutes ago; the world before Natasha knew his biggest secret, the one he's harboured from her for years. It wasn't his fault, but maybe it was. He's not sure anymore. He's not sure that she's sure, either, though it doesn't matter in the end.</p><p>Natasha pulls the trigger. And Clint Barton dies again.</p><p>-</p><p>Sadness is an old friend. Clint wakes alone, as expected. Natasha's taken Yelena's bow and not much else, and he spends another five months on his own in New York. By then the sadness has turned to anger and he reads all of Tolstoy out of spite. He misses her and it becomes tooth-aching bitterness.</p><p>He's mad that she didn't hear him out. He did the wrong thing and he should have told her, but she should have listened too. It wasn't his fault; he loses some of his grief with the realisation, and then goes out and gets drunk to wash away the aftertaste. He did what he could, and Yelena was still lost, but he didn't choose. The difference is what matters, and Natasha's not around to see it.</p><p>After New York he finds work in Iowa. There's not much else in Iowa, but he falls into more beds, fucks and drinks away the memories of the last two hundred or so years. It's like missing a limb, and when he wakes up the next morning or crawls out of bed he feels like a part of him is still lost. He's angry that she still has one hand pulling his strings and tries to cut her loose. He reads Tolstoy again just so he can write something with meaning, then posts it back to the old apartment on a drunken whim.</p><p>
  <em> It wasn't my fault. I shouldn't have lied to you but fuck Natasha, you could have listened to me. I'm angry at you. I'm allowed to be angry because you threw it all away. Three hundred years if you're counting. I loved you and you just... You just let this consume you. She's gone. I couldn't help and you couldn't either, and maybe it should be you instead. You're selfish. You hurt me too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. I read that in fucking Tolstoy. </em>
</p><p>He receives a reply two weeks later.</p><p>
  <em> 218 years. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>He's still in Iowa when the war begins. It's a big war, bigger than anything he's ever found himself caught up in before. Last night was Laura and he leaves her bed long before she wakes. He joins the army and sails out of the country with men less fortunate than him. Clint, at least, knows that he'll return from Europe alive. Out of habit he checks over his shoulder for red hair and a coy smile. He's not as disappointed as he expected to be when he doesn't see her.</p><p>He meets Phil Coulson in the trenches of Beaumont-Hamel. Phil is the type of easy-going guy that Clint likes; between artillery fire and wayward bullets they form something of a camaraderie. On the nights that they can actually rest they pass a flask of moonshine between them, or, if they're lucky, a bottle of wine from the nearby town. Phil is easy to talk to, and the war becomes just something to get through. For the others it's different, he knows; he's seen too many bodies now to pretend that it won't leave an impact.</p><p>Phil tells him about the woman he left behind. Clint doesn't have anyone he left behind. He <em> had </em> Natasha and now she's gone, and now he's angry with her.</p><p>"Natasha?" Phil asks.</p><p>Clint doesn't realise that he said it out loud, but now that he has he can't stop. <em> Natasha, my soulmate. It's always been her. I love her so much that I hate her for it. She's beautiful, Phil. She's the most beautiful person I've ever met. She's smart, too, and fun, and her love fills a room. My rooms are so empty now. Do you know what that feels like? </em></p><p>The wine warms his cold toes before they have a chance to heal. He was shot yesterday and the bullet popped out on its own, but the man next to him hadn’t been as lucky. Phil takes the bottle from him and gulps down a mouthful or two. If they're caught Clint knows the punishment will be severe. He just wants one normal thing.</p><p>"No," Phil says eventually. "What happened?"</p><p>"I ruined it," Clint explains. "She thought that I made a choice, but I couldn't choose. I <em> would </em>never choose. Now Yelena is drowning and Natasha hates me. She left me. She shot me and left me. Do you know I can't die?"</p><p>Phil raises an eyebrow. "It wouldn't be the craziest thing happening in the world right now. Who's Yelena?"</p><p>"Just a kid," Clint chokes. "Thrown to the bottom of the ocean. I didn't choose. That was Salem, that was witch hunting. Natasha is still mad though, so does it really matter?"</p><p>It's eerily quiet for one brief, brilliant second. By the time the gunfire has started again Phil has handed the bottle back and watches Clint closely. It feels brotherly in a foreign kind of way, but he leans towards it and clings.</p><p>"Maybe she's not mad about the choice," Phil says slowly. "Maybe she's mad that you didn't tell her. You said she's your soulmate, so she probably feels the same way. Maybe it's just the lie, after all this time."</p><p>Maybe. His life is full of too many maybes.</p><p>-</p><p>Phil dies. It's the hardest one, even harder than Pietro. Even harder than Yelena, because at least she has a chance. Phil dies saving Clint, like he didn't just tell him that he's immortal. Phil dies with a bullet to the neck and a letter in his pocket. <em> Dear Melinda</em>, it begins, and Phil dies without ever getting to see the way his ring looks on her finger. </p><p>Clint sits with his body for hours until he's eventually found and dragged away. He doesn't feel much for a while; he goes back to that place that used to pull him down somewhere dark and deep, and it protects him from the hurt. He wishes that it had been him. Phil's kindness lingers so he tries to forget. This war, despite being one of many, takes more than he expects.</p><p>The camp is basic and he loses track of time there. It drives him crazy, not knowing. He marks the wall beside his bed until he's found out and moved to a different barrack, and then he tries snapping branches off a tree. Something like five days pass before the whole tree comes down, and then he gives up for all of half a day. When he tries to escape they find him a mile away and drag him back by his ankles. The bullet kills him, and the rest is history. He becomes a new commodity and finally understands what it feels like to be chained to a cell wall.</p><p>His days become monotonous, and eventually his homesickness turns to relief. If he wakes up and eats the same breakfast and plows the same field and goes to bed with the same hollowness in his chest then he knows that at least he's still living. Not all of him wants to die anymore. There's regret and everything heavy that comes with it, and he doesn't want to go without at least <em> trying</em>. So when his skin sews back together and his blood pulses in his veins he thinks, <em> good. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be</em>.</p><p>It takes a year for the war to be won, and then Clint's wandering France again. He's older now and doesn't enter an empty cathedral alone, not that there are many left standing. He reads whatever newspaper he can get his hands on and doesn't let his eyes linger on the bodies of men who were infinitely less fortunate than him. Flesh and muscle soon grew around his ribs; the others are destined to suffer again, at home, in a place that shouldn't be allowed to become contaminated by war.</p><p>The Russian Tsar is dead. It's been so long since Clint left Iowa and the world has shifted again. There's a new flu and voting laws and fairies in England, apparently. He stays in France to help the Red Cross and gives himself five months; five months to make a new life, or five months to remember an old one. France is France and he doesn't expect Natasha to still be in America, but the <em> what-if </em> that hangs over his head is what eventually drives him to board a ship and cross the ocean again. He reaches Iowa six days later to find Laura waiting for him, and she has a baby, and Clint doesn't quite know what to do.</p><p>He thinks of marrying her. In the end, building a house is enough.</p><p>-</p><p>He realises that Cooper isn't his long before the house is finished and it doesn't hurt nearly as much as he expected it to. Cooper has brown eyes and looks at him like he hangs the stars in the sky, and it's enough to make him stay despite Laura's bitterness. She despises him. He might despise her too, though she's not around enough for him to notice. He stays for the boy and if he lets himself think about it for long enough he might even say that he stays for the experience.</p><p>"Robin Hood," Cooper pleads at bedtime. Clint hands him his teddy and ignores Laura's shadow in the doorway. She has more secrets than even he does, he can tell by the way her eyes flicker off his face. "Please."</p><p>"Okay," Clint agrees. "Once upon a time there was a man named Robin Hood, and he stole from the rich to help feed the poor. He had many adventures with his friends and one true love—"</p><p>"Maid Marion!" Cooper interrupts. It's his favourite story; Clint tells it every night and Laura listens in as though he's about to corrupt their son with tales of murder and misadventure. <em> Her son</em>, he reminds himself. <em> Cooper is just another person you're destined to leave</em>.</p><p>"I'll tell you a secret." Clint's never been one for risking the truth of his past out of spite, but months of living in a loveless house makes something else of a man. Cooper is a toddler and Laura has an opioid addiction she thinks he doesn't know about; he's not as worried as he once might have been at having his secret revealed. "Maid Marion's real name was Natalia."</p><p>Cooper's eyes go wide. "What?"</p><p>"I know it's true," he continues. "Her name was Natalia, and she could fight too. She helped Robin Hood. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, Coops."</p><p>"Wow," Cooper breathes. "S'cool."</p><p>"It is," Clint agrees. "But it’s bed time now, bud."</p><p>He tucks Cooper in, kisses the top of his shaggy hair. When he passes Laura in the doorway she grabs his arm and looks him in the eye as she says, "Did you love her?"</p><p>"Yes. Do you love him?"</p><p>She lets go of his arm. "You should leave."</p><p><em> Finally</em>, he thinks. <em> We're on the same page. </em></p><p>
  <em> - </em>
</p><p>He takes Cooper to the park and sits on a bench watching the little boy play in the sandbox. It's cold; his fingers tap against his knees and he longs for the feeling of the sun on the back of his neck. He feels her before he sees her. She always drops into his life unexpectedly and he's not sure why now would be any different.</p><p>Natasha's hair is shoulder length, her eyes green-gold. "Hi."</p><p>He thinks of a million things to say to her. None of them make it past his lips. "Hi."</p><p>"You fucked up," she says, gesturing to Cooper. "He's not even yours and you—"</p><p>"I know," Clint interrupts. He doesn't ask how she knows, too. <em> Salt on the wounds. </em>"Did you come here just to tell me that?"</p><p>"No," she says. His thigh is warm where it's pressed against her. "Just an observation."</p><p>"You hurt me, you know? I don't just mean the bullet."</p><p>Natasha shrugs. "I'm sorry."</p><p>He expects an explanation. He expects her to give him an excuse that he'll accept because it's her, and yet she offers nothing except the truth. He sees it on her face, when he turns to look at her. How deeply she regrets her actions.</p><p>"God, Nat," he whispers, rubbing a hand over his face. "How did we get to this?"</p><p>"I felt guilty that I couldn't have done more," she murmurs. "You felt it too. That's the Hell of it all, isn't it? That we're cursed to remember."</p><p>"Something like that," he replies. "How am I going to leave him?"</p><p>Natasha watches Cooper. He's happy in the sandbox, happy in the short life he's known. Laura won't care when she wakes up in the morning and Clint's gone; it's an arrangement of convenience, and he's tired of it. He'll miss the kid, only because he <em> is </em>a kid. The sun shines fiercely for him, even on the bad days.</p><p>"Walk out the door," Natasha deadpans. "Who said you had to come with me, anyway? You can stay with your moll if you want to."</p><p>"Hey, I love her—"</p><p>"No, you love the idea of normalcy that she gives you," Natasha says. His lie makes his tongue burn and he's sure she can see it on his face, plain as day. "Trust me, I've been loved by you one day and not the next. She wouldn't be standing."</p><p>Clint hides his surprise well. He knew that Natasha had loved him, if only because he could feel it whenever she was with him. She had loved him like she had never been hurt before, with the whole of her heart behind every word whispered in his ear late at night when she thought he was asleep. He hadn't thought about what it would be like for her afterwards, too. It aches to breathe most days and he's started to think it's his soul calling for her.</p><p>"So I don't love her," he settles on. "How could I? But I love Cooper, and it's not fair..."</p><p>"Life often isn't fair," Natasha says softly, then turns to face him. Eye to eye, she takes his hand and squeezes his fingers. "I have so many regrets. I'm asking for your forgiveness even if I know I don't deserve it."</p><p>Clint lets out a breath. "How many years has it been?"</p><p>"Since I shot you? Ten."</p><p>She doesn't ask why he doesn't know, though he sees the question in her eyes. The last time he had tried to track the time it had been ripped from him so fiercely his hands are still blistered. After that, he measured the days in Cooper's growth, Laura's anger. He's spent ten years without her this time and it feels like a lifetime.</p><p>He doesn't want to cry, but the tears gather before he can look away. "What do I even need to forgive you for?"</p><p>"For blaming you," she says. The truth. She's always given him the truth. "I blamed you for years, even when I loved you. It wasn't your fault, Clint. I was selfish, like you said. You need to be mad at me for that."</p><p>"I was mad," he chokes. "Now I just miss you."</p><p>Phil had died before he could propose to Melinda, and Clint hasn't been able to forget the regret that seeped out of him in those last moments, red like his blood. He can't die until he can, until he has his Maria moment and leaves behind everything he's come to love. Because he does love the world he used to hate; he loves the changing leaves and new life and the colour of her hair caught in the sunrise. He loves her, despite it all. He thinks that they have always been destined for each other, even when it feels like the end.</p><p>"I miss you too," she whispers, and the pain behind her voice makes his tears finally fall. She cups his cheek and brushes them away with her thumb. There's so much love on her face that he feels like he might crumble under the weight of it. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."</p><p>He leans in to kiss her first, and her lips taste just like he remembers, honeyed sin and danger. His head swims and he wants to tell her about everything he's seen, everything he's been forced to live without her by his side. Instead Clint clings to her hand, holds her in place, and when she sighs against his mouth he feels it down to his toes. The relief, to be together again. He can forgive her and he does. </p><p>"We both made mistakes," he says, pulling away just enough to let the words out. "It was a different time, Nat. I’m sorry, too."</p><p>"You didn’t kill me for it," she says. </p><p>"I thought about it."</p><p>She rolls her eyes. "There’s a difference between a thought and an action."</p><p>"Fine," he relents. "But still. I was angry. Time apart—"</p><p>"—Room for you to breathe—"</p><p>"—It put things in perspective. More than it did the first time." He doesn’t know how to make her see what he’s desperately trying to tell her, so he kisses her again, draws out a moan from somewhere deep in her throat. "I’m saying I love you."</p><p>"I love you, too," Natasha says. "Can I be brave enough to assume that you’ll come with me?"</p><p>He nods. "Yes. But I need to send Cooper somewhere safe. I don't want him to grow up and think that he wasn't wanted."</p><p>Natasha moves her head to watch Cooper. He looks up and notices them and she waves,  shuffling away from Clint on the bench. Cooper gets unsteadily to his feet and toddles over to them. He'll be hard to say goodbye to, even if it's for the best. He has a fistful of sand that he dumps in Natasha's lap like some kind of gift.</p><p>"Is you Maid Marion?" he asks. "'M Cooper."</p><p>Natasha grins. "Yes, I am."</p><p>"Hi," he says, suddenly shy. Clint laughs and stands, scoops him up under one arm and holds his free hand out to Natasha. She takes it and they walk, Cooper squealing and her smiling. The air is crisp; Iowa is Iowa is New York is Paris. Life doesn’t slot exactly back into place but it inches closer to something that is almost whole. </p><p>And it feels easy. And it feels like coming home.</p><p>-</p><p>Forgiveness tastes like the inside of her thighs. It feels like her skin against his, belly and chest and neck. It sounds like Nat and Tasha and <em> Clinton </em>. It looks like her lazy smile in the candlelight, the smile that paints her cheeks pink.</p><p>There's no falling back into love. Clint leaves with her and they pick up right where they left off, and they go slowly, surely. They talk in the early hours of the morning when the world is still asleep and they can be quiet.  They talk about everything until there's nothing left to talk about, and then they lay together, side by side. Her toes curled in the back of his knee, fingers brushing. It means <em> welcome back, </em> it means <em> I missed you.  </em></p><p>"Did you hear the rumour about the princess?" Natasha’s voice is husky. He likes the way it sends a shiver down his spine. </p><p>He turns to her, forehead to forehead. "The Russian one?"</p><p>"Yes," she breathes. "It’s true. I gave her my name."</p><p>"What name was that?"</p><p>Her eyes roll. "Natalia. I was there when it happened and I got her out. Sent her to an orphanage. It feels… Well, it feels like the right thing to do. I can’t pretend to be someone who died so long ago."</p><p>"Natalia Romanova," Clint says. "It’s an interesting idea. She the only survivor?"</p><p>"Yes, but she doesn’t remember much," she says. "Kind of like how I don’t remember much anymore. Adrian, Maria—faceless names."</p><p>Clint knows it too. There are ghosts that he plucks from his memory occasionally, except he doesn’t recognise them anymore. He tries to picture Natasha in Russia, in the middle of a warzone. It’s not as hard as it should be.</p><p>"Hmm," he hums, rolls over and pulls her to his chest. "Do you think Cooper will be okay in an orphanage?"</p><p>"You did the right thing," she says immediately. "He was never yours, Clint."</p><p>He sighs. "I know. I just couldn’t leave him with her."</p><p>They fall silent again. The silence still takes getting used to after year upon year of bullets and bombs and the heartache that war brings. He doesn’t dream much anymore, but when he does he sees the trenches of France before anything else. With Natasha back it might be different. The thought of it has him closing his eyes long before he’s ready to sleep, his body settling into a state of peacefulness he’s not felt for a decade.</p><p>"I have a surprise for you," Natasha says, which could mean anything and everything. She breathes in, out. He counts the seconds between each one as though it will give him the answer. "Take me out to lunch tomorrow."</p><p>Her power. He kisses the corner of her mouth and sleeps.</p><p>-</p><p>They sit outside at Monetta’s with two bowls of the best spaghetti Clint's ever eaten in his life. Natasha twirls creamy fettuccine around her fork and slurps it up slowly, eyes shining as she bats her lashes. He stabs a meatball with his fork and looks anywhere other than her lips. He's never seen dirtier tactics in his life, and he's been on both sides of conflict more times than he can count.</p><p>The day is cool and she wears a scarf the colour of his eyes. He people-watches and eats his spaghetti and remembers what it's like to just sit and be content for a change. He sees a man in a bowler hat and a woman with a poodle that's one day shy of needing a groom and a girl with a round face and blonde hair. He does a double take, watches her take another step closer. Her eyes narrow but her lips quirk and then the rest of her face follows suit. <em> I've been holding onto the light of her</em>.</p><p>"Surprise," Natasha says softly, and Yelena pulls up a chair between them, grabs his fork from his hand and steals his last meatball. Natasha's eyes flicker; he might detect worry if he could focus on anything else. "Clint?"</p><p>"It's rude to stare," Yelena says. Her voice is the same. <em> She's </em> the same, which shouldn't surprise him, but it does. "Your manners are appalling."</p><p>He leans forward and lets his head hit the table. Someone threads their fingers into his hair and scrapes their nails across his scalp. <em> Natasha</em>, his muddled mind supplies. <em> Natasha touches you like this</em>.</p><p>"How?" He asks, which is all he can ask. Why and where and when all spring to mind, as in <em> where did you come from? When did you get out? Why now, Yelena? Is this the only reason Natasha came back after all? </em></p><p>"A submarine found me," Yelena says around a mouthful of spaghetti. <em> Submarine. </em>He remembers Natasha's joy, the hope that had faded too fast when she realised they couldn't use one to search for her. "And then a ship pulled me out. I killed them all."</p><p>Clint breathes out. "This isn't real."</p><p>"It sounds like a dream, I know," Natasha says. "Clint, it's real. She's here."</p><p>"I found Natka by chance," Yelena says. "The world is much bigger now, you know."</p><p>"I know." He looks up and feels the tears that prick at his eyes when he sees her face again. She's back, and the guilt that he's carried, the guilt that drove them apart, is suddenly infinitely lighter. "I'm so sorry, Yelena."</p><p>"I don't care about it," she tells him. "I know how it happened. Natalia told me everything I missed. You're both idiots."</p><p>Natasha smiles. "We know. But mainly me."</p><p>"I like toilets," Yelena declares. "That's where I found her."</p><p>"Public bathroom in Moscow," Natasha elaborates. Clint tries to keep up, knows that Natasha was in Russia to save a princess. "I thought I was seeing a ghost."</p><p>"She screamed. I screamed. Can we all live together again now?"</p><p>Yelena's optimism knocks the air out of his lungs again. She'd drowned for nearly three hundred years and has crawled out of the ocean with forgiveness in the palm of her hand. He's not sure they deserve it for the way that they had let it destroy them. He's not sure they deserve it for letting it happen at all, but Yelena has always been better than the two of them combined. There's no adjustment for her; she's thrown in, head first, and managed to land on her feet. She's stronger than him, and he loves her for it.</p><p>"Is this the only reason you came back for me?" He asks Natasha. She holds his hand now and squeezes, and it feels like an echo of a thousand reassurances. "Tell me the truth. How long have you known?"</p><p>"A year," Natasha says. "I wanted to come back long before that, Clint. I wanted to come back the moment I left the apartment."</p><p>"Why didn't you?"</p><p>She sighs, tilts her head. "I had to do a lot of growing. I couldn't put you through any more pain."</p><p>Clint nods and finally smiles. He reaches over, snatches the fork out of Yelena's hand and feels her fingers, real. She sticks her tongue out and he pretends to be offended, but acting has never been his strong suit. His happiness bursts out of his face; Natasha smiles too, slurps her fettuccine, lets Yelena dip her fingers into the sauce like she still hasn't fully grasped the concept of utensils. He doesn't question anything else. He just lets it happen.</p><p>-</p><p>Yelena tells him everything over a bottle of vodka she won't drink, rolling her eyes and declaring herself <em> too young, Barton </em>. She tells him how scared she was, when they threw her overboard, the minute of free fall that seemed to last an eternity. How agonising it was to drown the first time; how it almost drove her insane every time after that. The submarine had appeared like a beacon in the dark light and she had choked on salty water another four hundred and thirty-seven times before the ship arrived.</p><p>She had woken onboard, surrounded by sailors who spoke a language she didn't know. <em> German</em>, Natasha guesses, the one country they never spent much time in. Yelena shrugs, because she tore through the ship with years of pain and confusion driving her and came out the other side feeling no better. She had made her way through Europe, following the war, had reached Russia and then made peace with never knowing what had happened to them. Until.</p><p>"Until I saw her hair," Yelena says. "Devil hair. I cried. Do you know what it feels like to miss someone so much it hurts?"</p><p>"Yes," Clint says. His eyes meet Natasha's across the table and he feels her ankle knock against his. "You know we missed you, too?"</p><p>"I told her everything," Natasha says, and he smiles, grateful. There are years he doesn't want to remember, even if he always will.</p><p>Yelena likes pants. She likes flicking the lights on in every room and watching silent films on TV. She eats with a vigour that Clint can't keep up with and holds her bow like she never put it down. At night she screams when Natasha turns the shower on, but the bathtub is no better, and he can only sit outside the door and listen to her sob as Natasha washes her hair. She falls asleep holding one of their hands and wakes up before the sun, dancing to Louis Armstrong and laughing like she's never felt pain in her life. They take her shopping, let her pick whatever she wants. She leaves with a knife and a jewellery box to house the emerald that she's kept safe for all these years.</p><p>He buys Natasha a necklace. It glints against her throat in the candlelight as she rubs Yelena's back. The candle is a comfort, and they're in the business of offering comfort. When Yelena chokes on air in the night Natasha climbs out from beside him and holds her, strokes a hand over her hair. Night time is the worst. There's no hiding in the dark.</p><p>They live in New York until Yelena feels comfortable enough to leave. They catch a train to Canada, stay a month, and then move to Sweden. It's easy to leave places now. It's easy to accept that Yelena rose from the ocean and Natasha loves him as endlessly as he loves her. It's the truth as much as the arrow around her neck is a promise.</p><p>In Sweden they do much the same as what they did in Nottingham, picking pockets and trading watches for blankets. They feed the poor, use vinegar to deter lice; Natasha braids the hair of every young girl she finds on the streets and Yelena entertains them with puppets on the weekends. Clint hunts where he can, <em> does </em>what he can. Most countries are the same, so that by the time the Second War has broken out they’re already in Poland with less sense and more manpower. And still, there’s only so much they can do.</p><p>War haunts them. Yelena, who has never seen destruction on such a huge scale, who fell into the ocean long before they knew what an automatic weapon would look like, is executed for spitting at a soldier. Natasha drapes herself over the healing body and they lay in the street for hours until it’s safe to move, and yet. And yet between the three of them and six years of decimation they die seventy-four times; bullets and rope and knives and fire, so that Clint finally knows what it feels to burn.</p><p>They don’t leave Poland whole. He has a list of names, children he lifted out of the arms of their desperate parents. Yelena cries the entire train ride to St Petersburg and they leave Natasha there to check on the princess. He takes her to Italy and teaches her how to drive and they spend every other day eating as much gelato as they can. </p><p>Yelena wants to visit the Trinità dei Monti church. "Have you been anywhere holy since Natka killed you?"</p><p>"No," he snorts. "Used to think she’d damned me for eternity."</p><p>"You did that to yourself," she teases. "She told me about it all."</p><p>He grunts. "I know. It's been a rough few hundred years."</p><p>"Both of you are idiots. I was always going to come back, Clint. I had my lucky emerald."</p><p>"Right." He rolls his eyes and sighs as they finally reach the top of the Spanish Steps. His lungs ache for a second and then the feeling is gone. "It ruined us."</p><p>"It's because I'm so special," Yelena says with a wink. "You don't have to tell me. I know I'm your favourite."</p><p>They enter the church and Clint checks over his shoulder out of habit, muscle memory making his neck ache. Yelena walks slowly and touches the pews with the kind of gentleness he doesn't remember her for. She's always been rough and tumble, the girl who jumped out of a tree just to see how quickly her broken bones would heal. Now when she smiles at him he sees for the first time the lasting damages of being trapped underwater for decades, the crinkles by her eyes that could be wrinkles that won't heal.</p><p>"I never wanted that to happen to you," he says suddenly, standing before the High Altar. "I should have done more."</p><p>"You didn't let me go alone," Yelena says, as if it's always been that simple. "I was glad that you followed me. That's really all I remember of Salem anyway."</p><p>He remembers their bodies swinging, their bodies alight. "That's good. It wasn't a nice time."</p><p>"Most of history isn't," she says. "Natasha read me Robin Hood, the first week we were back together. I like that story, even if they got some of it wrong."</p><p>"We were a team," Clint laughs. Robin Hood will be the thing he's remembered for, in the end, and he can't find it in him to care. It made Cooper smile, and maybe that's how he'll remember Clint, too. Like someone who feels more of a dream than anything else.</p><p>"We <em> are </em>a team," Yelena corrects. "Can you take me somewhere fun? I have so many years to make up for."</p><p>Clint looks at the Altar, then catches Yelena closing her eyes for one brief, quiet moment. He does too even though he long ago gave up on his belief in any higher entity. Everything around him fades away until all he can feel is the breeze across his skin. It's not cold. He breathes in and clears his head of the tangled mess it's become since Natasha left.</p><p>There's a tug on his hand, and he follows Yelena out of the church, back down the steps and out into the crowds. He's not sure where he leads her, in the end, but her laughter is enough to drown out the terror he sometimes still hears when he looks around a corner and sees gaping holes instead of buildings. Italy is Italy is Germany is Poland. All of it’s history, too, but they won't ever know how Yelena danced to La Vie en rose at the edge of the Trevi Fountain. He gives her a coin and she tosses it over her right shoulder with a grin that only spells trouble. He throws his own coin and wishes for a warm bed, red curls fanned across his chest.</p><p>It's midnight when he hears her sneak in, stopping by Yelena's room to check out of habit. He keeps his eyes closed and feels the bed dip as she crawls in beside him. Her hand snakes under his arm, comes to rest over his heart. He feels her lips by his ear and reaches for her fingers, squeezes them three times.</p><p>"I fucked up," Natasha says.</p><p>Clint sighs. "Oh yea?"</p><p>"Yea." She lets her head drop between his shoulder blades. "There's something we need to do."</p><p>"You know how much gelato we've eaten since you've been gone?" He asks. He feels the burst of laughter that breaks off into a sob and turns in the bed to gather her in his arms. "We've fucked up before, Tash. It'll be okay."</p><p>"Okay," she agrees. He doesn't think she knows what else to do, but the morning is for serious conversations and for now they still have enough moonlight to get them through. "Hold me."</p><p>He always will, and he does.</p><p>-</p><p>
  <b>Victoria, Hong Kong</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1952</b>
</p><p>Clint’s bow is new. He’s still getting used to it when they find themselves in Hong Kong chasing Natsha’s ghost. Years of dead ends and close calls have led them here and he’s not convinced that they’ll achieve what they came to do anyway. They’ve had more luck hunting war criminals in South America than they have a woman on her own. Natalia Romanova, the lost princess Anastasia, is deadlier than he gave her credit for.</p><p>Natasha lowers her binoculars. "She hasn’t come out yet."</p><p>"Probably knows we’re here," Clint grumbles. He stretches his legs out in front of him and rubs his aching thighs. "Just like she knew in Ireland, and Argentina, and—"</p><p>"I know." She offers him the binoculars but he shrugs them off. He can see her. He just prays she can’t see them. "If I had known it would end like this I would have just…"</p><p>Clint’s not so sure Natasha would have left her to succumb to the same fate as her family. It might have been the kinder option. Anastasia or Natalia, whoever she really is, has been dealt cards that were never in her favour.</p><p>"How could you know she would be turned into this?" He asks. "C’mon Nat. Underground Soviet organisations don’t exactly spring to mind as potential adoptees when dropping a kid off at an orphanage."</p><p>"Underground Soviet <em> killer </em>organisations," Yelena corrects from behind him. "You can’t forget the part about them making child assassins."</p><p>Natasha huffs and raises the binoculars again. "Fine."</p><p>"Besides," Clint continues, happy to talk now that they’ve broken the spell. "You said they put that serum into her, right? Aren’t we just making it harder for it to happen again?"</p><p>"The only other person known to survive the process is currently frozen in ice, if rumours are to be believed," Natasha snorts. "Heroic."</p><p>"Captain Spangles," Yelena sighs. "I saw him on TV. Do you think he lives forever too?"</p><p>"He’s frozen, Yelena."</p><p>"I think he probably would die eventually, right?" Clint muses. "Unless they got some of our messed up DNA in that serum."</p><p>It’s a terrifying thought. The years have brought with them inventions that Clint could never have dreamt; all of the good is followed by the bad, and when Natasha had first told him what she had learnt all those years ago in Italy his insides had frozen over. There hadn’t been another one like them since Yelena, but he had never considered that it could be done artificially.</p><p>"So we stop her," Natasha murmurs. "And we hope that it doesn't happen to anyone else."</p><p>"Big hope," Yelena says.</p><p>Clint notices movement. "Heads up."</p><p>Natasha cracks the window and grabs Yelena as she rushes past, trying to see. Clint moves slowly, aims his arrow out of the narrow slot and catches sight of Natalia locking the door behind her. She looks up, and maybe she sees him. Maybe there's relief on her face, and maybe she stays right where she is. It's the easiest target, but somehow the hardest. He lets the arrow fly and watches her fall, just in case she gets back up.</p><p>"That was too easy," Yelena says. She rolls out of Natasha's grip and peers over the windowsill, squinting to make out the body in the street. "Something else has to happen."</p><p>Clint shrugs. "Maybe not. I think she was tired of running."</p><p>There's not much to say after that. Clint packs his bow and leaves Natasha to look out the window. He's not sure if she regrets the decision or if she wishes it were her instead. He's got his quiver on his back and is one step closer to the door when he hears the thunk of an arrow hitting a wall. Yelena shouts, and then the room goes up in smoke.</p><p>When Clint wakes his quiver is still on his back. His first thought is Natasha, and he rubs the grit from his eyes to try and find her body amongst the rubble. He sees Yelena first, sitting up against the crumbling wall and wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. Natasha is covered in glass and for one brief, terrifying moment he thinks that she hasn't healed at all. Then she rolls over and coughs, and he sees the tip of an arrowhead clutched tightly in her hand.</p><p>The second his legs work again he gets up and spins around, has an arrow aimed at the back of the woman fleeing the building before his head has stopped spinning. He fires and she falls, and then she gets up again, turns to him with wide eyes and enough shock on her features that he can lunge forward and catch her around the waist. They both hit the ground and he has the arrow against her throat before she can move. There's no fear on her face when he meets her gaze; if anything, now that they've both reached the same conclusion about each other, there's a cockiness that makes him bristle.</p><p>"Nice bow," she says. "Who are you?"</p><p>He glares at her. "Clint Barton. Who are you?"</p><p>"Kate Bishop." She strains her neck away from the arrow and rolls her eyes at him. "I think we know that that will achieve nothing."</p><p>"How old are you?" Yelena's head pokes over his shoulder, smile wide and body all but vibrating with excitement. "You look like me!"</p><p>"I'm not," Kate protests, then sighs at the look on Clint's face. "Fine. I was fifteen. I don't think it matters anymore, right?"</p><p>"Yay!" Yelena squeals. "Can we be friends?"</p><p>"When did it happen the first time?" Clint asks. He lets Kate up and rubs a hand across his dirty face. Natasha's ankle finally comes back together with a sickening crunch and then she stands too, stalks her way over to them with the kind of look on her face that screams danger. "We didn't see you."</p><p>"I saw her," Kate says, pointing at Yelena. "It was a few years ago, during the war. I don't know what happened. I just had a dream and <em> she </em>was in it."</p><p>"You can't die," Natasha says.</p><p>It doesn't need an answer, but Kate gives one anyway. "No, I can't."</p><p>"Can we keep her?" Yelena asks.</p><p>"She tried to kill us," Natasha snaps. "I'm not sure I trust her."</p><p>"Hey, I only did that because <em> you </em>killed my mark," Kate protests. "I was getting paid for that."</p><p>"By who?"</p><p>Kate shrugs. "People. Look, my family is dead. I had nothing to go back to. I wasn’t going to say no."</p><p>Clint turns to Natasha and tries to understand the expression on her face. They followed a ghost to Hong Kong and he can’t see her agreeing to taking in a stray. It makes him nervous to think that they missed Kate; that for five or six or however many years she had been wandering exactly like them, meaning that there could be <em> more </em>, meaning that everything he thought he knew about himself is wrong. She's just another kid caught in the middle of something she shouldn't be. He raises his eyebrows and Natasha rolls her eyes.</p><p>"Who said I want to come with you anyway?" Kate asks. There's something in her voice that gives her away, and he remembers how achingly painful it had been on his own, even when he convinced himself it wasn't. "I'm fine on my own."</p><p>"We have a house in New York," Yelena says. "Apartment, actually. Did you know they wrote Robin Hood about us? Except they forgot that I was there too."</p><p>Kate blinks. "Robin Hood?"</p><p>"If you're coming with us we need to leave now," Natasha says sharply. "I only have one rule."</p><p>"What's that?" Clint hears himself ask.</p><p>"No killing each other," she says. Her eyes linger on his for a moment before she turns and points a finger at Yelena. "I'm talking to you."</p><p>"Hey!" Yelena protests, stomping behind Natasha as she leaves the ruined room. "I haven't—"</p><p>"I can see you thinking about it."</p><p>Clint laughs and follows behind them all, keeping one eye on Kate as she shuffles alongside Yelena. There's a resignation in the way she holds her shoulders, now, and he senses the crushing weight of loneliness. Kate's been on her own for just long enough that survival has taken over all rational thought. Once, she might not have trusted three strangers she had just met in the middle of Hong Kong. Or maybe she would have, and Clint can only project what he sees swimming in her eyes back onto her.</p><p>Yelena bickers with them the whole way back to the airport hotel. They check in, looking a little worse for wear and feeling the aftermath of being thrown across a room from the force of an explosion. They let Kate shower first and then he slides in with Natasha, leaving the two girls to get to know one another. A small part of him hopes that she'll stay. She has a bow and enough smarts that he thinks he might get along with her.</p><p>"That was anticlimactic," Natasha murmurs. There's dried blood on her back from what he supposes was once a wound. He squirts body wash into his palm and smooths it across her skin. "I was expecting more resistance."</p><p>"She was done running," he says. "Can't be a nice life."</p><p>"We know that." She spins around to face him, hair plastered to the sides of her face. She had looked like this once, in a river. "What do we do about Kate?"</p><p>"She's not so bad," he shrugs. "What's the worst that can happen anyway?"</p><p>"How do we know we can trust her?"</p><p>Trust has never come easily for Natasha, even if she pretended that it did. She had trusted him and he had thrown it back in her face and she had still come back, and he's not sure the scar tissue will ever heal. Not all wounds are physical, he knows that now. But he loves her, and love is enough.</p><p>"She's just a kid," Clint says. "Besides, if we don't have trust then what else do we have?"</p><p>Natasha slaps halfheartedly at this chest. "Hope. Do you still want to die?"</p><p>The answer is easy. Easier than it ever has been before. "No. Do you?"</p><p>"No," she whispers. "So we let Kate stay. Now what?"</p><p>"We do what we always do." He leans down and presses his lips to her shoulder, sticky sweet from the honey scented lotion. She shivers and he punctuates each word with a kiss up her neck. "See where the world takes us."</p><p>-</p><p>It takes them back to all the places they know. Kate trusts him and follows him around everywhere, shying away from Yelena's friendliness. There's months of awkwardness before she feels comfortable enough to grin across the dinner table at Natasha. They grow again, bend again; she becomes a part of the family so quickly that it feels like she was always there. In Virginia he takes her out to a shooting range and pretends to help her hit a bullseye. She doesn't need his advice. Kate's a natural, and she knows it, too.</p><p>They leave Yelena and Kate for a month in '97 and make the trek back to Iowa. Princess Diana is dead and the years have become a blur of paranoia and plain happiness. It's harder to fly under the radar now, and Clint's spent more than one night awake with Natasha, trying to talk her out of the panic that's become a new companion. She's scared of being found out, because they've been lucky enough to live in any country they want without being noticed or recognised; now the sound of a camera shutter makes her shake and he can't work out why the world is suddenly obsessed with recording everything.</p><p>He takes a photo of Natasha on the park bench, the only photo she'll ever allow. Hair blowing across her face, hands tucked into her jacket pockets. Her smile warms his heart through the pocket of his shirt where he keeps her tucked away safely.</p><p>"They named her Natalia, you know?"</p><p>Natasha tears her eyes away from the playground to accept the cup of coffee he hands her. "There are nicer names."</p><p>Clint sits stiffly beside her. The air is crisp and Cooper has his granddaughter bundled up in a thick coat. This year she's old enough to slide down the slide by herself, and Cooper cheers as she flies into his arms. He's getting old; his knees are stiff and his hair is greying at the temples. Clint looks exactly the same as he did the day he left him at the orphanage. Time hasn't touched him, but it's weighing down the corners of Cooper's mouth.</p><p>"He was obsessed with that story," Clint says. "I told it to him every night."</p><p>"You were good to him," Natasha says. "Better than most people would have been. Do you think he's ever noticed us here?"</p><p>They've been visiting Iowa sporadically for the past fifty years. Clint has no idea what happened to Laura and wants to keep it that way, but Cooper had been a fatality in his life that he wishes he could have avoided. Checking up on him had become a habit. He's lived in the same place and followed the gentle slope of his life without much fanfare, and once Clint would have envied him for it.</p><p>"No," he replies. "I think this has to be the last time though."</p><p>Natasha holds his hand in the space between them. "Everything ends, Clint. But you know I don't mind coming here."</p><p>"Yea, I know," he says. "I gotta stop living in the past, Tasha."</p><p>"Sometimes the past is burrowed in so deep that it's too painful to pick out." She sips her coffee and grins at him over the rim. "There's a lot worth remembering."</p><p>"Oh yea? Like what?"</p><p>"Like all the nights you slept beside me just because I asked you to."</p><p>He wants to tell her that he'll do anything she asks but he thinks she already knows. Her hand is warm in his and he squeezes her fingers, as if it will let her know exactly what he feels. <em> I love you, </em> and <em> I want you, </em> and <em> you're the best part of my past. Please be my future. </em></p><p>"Like I would say no," he laughs. "There's a lot worth forgetting, too."</p><p>She shrugs. "Are you sure you want to say goodbye?"</p><p>"It's not like he knows we do this," Clint says. "Iowa is Iowa. I won't miss it."</p><p>"I might miss this park bench," she teases. "We'll have to find another one so you can kiss me."</p><p>He frowns and leans towards her, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her into him, too. "Can't I just kiss you because?"</p><p>"Because what?" She whispers. The distance between their faces can be measured in seconds and breaths that touch their lips like a promise.</p><p>"Because I love you." He kisses her once and she sighs. He kisses her twice and she kisses him back, hand curling around his bicep. "Because I want to. If <em> you </em>want a park bench, though, I—"</p><p>"No," she murmurs. "I just want you."</p><p>"Good." He pulls back, runs a hand over her cheek. He knows every inch of her by now, but it's still nice to remind himself. "I think we're being watched."</p><p>"Yes," Natasha agrees. "The silver Camry. It arrived shortly after you did."</p><p>Clint casts his eyes over to the car and tries to make out the driver through the window. He sees a head move, as though they realise they've been caught, and then the car starts and pulls out. Natasha turns her head to watch it pass and narrows her eyes at the number plate, and by the time Clint looks back at her she's scribbling dot-points down with a pen on the side of her coffee cup.</p><p>"Something to keep an eye on?" He suggests carefully.</p><p>She nods. "It never hurt to be cautious."</p><p>He thinks that <em> cautious </em> is probably a kinder way of saying <em> paranoid </em>. Both of them have spent too many years looking over their shoulders after every step to disregard a car parked too close by. Sometimes he wonders if it's just him and some part of him that's too afraid of change, as though everything will end if it's not exactly how it is now. But Natasha, in all of her level-headedness, agrees, and that means something, even if he doesn't know what.</p><p>Cooper spins Natalia in the air. They hear her laughter, floating across the park on the back of an icy gale. Natasha pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders and Clint feels the chill from centuries ago. He takes her hand and pulls her up, and they leave without looking back. If they did they might have noticed the way that Cooper pauses for just a second, hand raised as if to wave, as if he never really forgot them at all.</p><p>-</p><p>The car follows them for weeks. Natasha spots it when grocery shopping; Yelena and Kate return from the cinema with a story about a man watching them from across the road. Clint uses Kate's exploding arrowhead to develop prototypes of his own until his quiver is full of an arsenal he never would have dreamt of. He doesn't ask her how she came to own them, because there's a part of Kate's past that he's sure she's only shared with Yelena and he doesn't want to push her. Sometimes she smiles and he sees a world of hurt in her eyes, so he wraps an arm around her shoulders and lets her sit quietly for a moment. It's enough, and that's all she needs.</p><p>With the arrowheads and enough of a head start they try to settle in Atlantic City, and it works for a while. Yelena goes back to University, enrols in a Women's Studies class and drops out after they spend a semester discussing the witch trials. Natasha sits with her at night again and he learns new things about Kate in their absence. The Camry appears sometime between Natasha teaching them all how to use a halberd that she's carried around for centuries and Kate bringing home a stray puppy. Peeking through the window, they notice that the driver isn't alone this time.</p><p>They leave Atlantic City with the halberd and the puppy. Clint names him Lucky. He licks Yelena's fingers until she smiles again and they teach him to sit at the edge of the road. They'll outlive him and everyone that stops to pet him on his daily walk, but he takes the ache away for a while.</p><p>In Omaha Clint takes her to the ballet. Her dress is black, cut in all the right places. He's seen her in rags before and the sight of her then had taken his breath away. If his heart could stop beating he imagines that it would when she tucks her arm into his. They haven't seen the car for months and for once there's excitement on her face. They take their seats; three seconds later, Clint realises that something is very wrong.</p><p>A man sits besides Natasha. Clint feels her nails dig into his forearm and moves his other hand to clutch the knife in his waistband. It's just the three of them in a theatre that's emptied in the time it took him to whisper how exactly he'd take the dress <em> off </em> when they got home in her ear, and it twists his stomach in real, unbridled fear. <em> An old friend</em>, he thinks. <em> I'm still human</em>.</p><p>"You're hard people to find," the man says.</p><p>Natasha's shoulders are tense. "When we don't want to be, perhaps."</p><p>"Tough way to live."</p><p>"We've had tougher," Clint says warily. "Who are you?"</p><p>"I'm Nick Fury," the man says. He has an eyepatch and the kind of face Clint doesn't know if he can trust. "You're Clinton Barton. And you—" He points a finger at Natasha and she glares right back at him—"Are Natalia of Scythia."</p><p>Clint doesn't expect Natasha to jump, but she does, and the rush of air that escapes her clenched teeth almost sounds like a sob. He stares at the two of them and tries to make sense of whatever the look is that passes between them, because Nick Fury has managed to shake Natasha in a way that she hasn't been for decades.</p><p>"Nobody calls me that," she whispers. "How do you know that name?"</p><p>"I know more than you think," Fury replies cryptically. "Come with me and I might just tell you."</p><p>Clint bristles. "Like Hell we're leaving with—"</p><p>"Kate and Yelena are playing Guess Who right now. Kate has Susan and Yelena—"</p><p>"Leave them alone," Natasha says. Her voice is deep, fury erupting from her chest. "What do you want?"</p><p>"I want your help," he says. "I’m sure you remember Captain America?"</p><p><em> Captain Spangles</em>, Clint thinks, but says, "We heard of him."</p><p>"I’m sure you remember the war, too," Fury says. </p><p>"I’ve read the articles," Natasha says carefully. Her grip on his arm tightens and he imagines the prick of blood she might draw, pictures it sinking back into his skin. There’s been so many wars it takes him a second to remember the pain that goes hand in hand with the images that are seared into his mind. "We weren’t there."</p><p>"Ten Jewish children might say otherwise. I’m sure if we asked, there would be many more."</p><p>
  <em> One hundred and three. Not nearly enough. We could have done more. </em>
</p><p>Natasha lets go of his arm and stands. "Whatever you’re implying is misguided, Mr Fury. Let’s go, Clint."</p><p>"Agent Fury," Fury corrects. "I’m with SHIELD, and we’ve been dating you as far back as the thirteenth century. The name Robin Hood ring a bell?"</p><p>Clint’s stomach plummets. "It’s a fairytale."</p><p>"Folklore starts somewhere," Fury continues. "Or maybe you might remember this: 1692 Salem. A girl thrown overboard."</p><p>"How?" Clint asks, because it’s all he <em> can </em>ask before he decides between stabbing Fury or running for the hills. "How do you know about this?"</p><p>"It's my job to keep tabs. Come with me and I'll tell you all about it."</p><p>"No," Natasha says immediately. "We don't go anywhere with anyone."</p><p>Clint's not sure who moves first. Fury stands and grabs Natasha's arm in the same second that she reaches around his waist and pulls out the knife. Both of them end up glaring at each other; Natasha with the knife pointed at Fury's side, Fury with a gun pushing against the underside of Natasha's chin. The gun won't do anything, and Clint's not worried about that. What he's suddenly blindly aware of is the fact that they have no idea if Fury is really just like them.</p><p>"Wait," he says. His hand darts between them, clutching at empty air. "You obviously came here for a reason. A <em> real </em>reason. What do you need from us?"</p><p>Fury's face momentarily shutters into shock and Clint realises that he didn't think he would be made. "You're consistent. You want to do good. Hell, we've got a thousand fucking years to work with when it comes to her."</p><p>"Natasha," Clint corrects.</p><p>"<em>Natasha</em>," Fury says. "Most people in your position wouldn't spend their whole... <em> existence </em>trying to make the world a better place. God knows we don't deserve it."</p><p>"We haven't done that good," Natasha says softly. She takes the knife away and after a beat Fury does the same with the gun. "We've killed people."</p><p>"You saved a family of refugees whose daughter would go on to develop the technique for the early detection of diabetes," Fury says. "You gave a poor woman food and shelter and her grandson went on to save three hundred and seven people from the Khmer Rouge. That's not even scraping the efforts you made in the Second World War."</p><p>Clint shrugs. "Your point?"</p><p>"There’s an initiative," Fury says carefully. "An idea, really, but a motherfucking good one. To bring extraordinary people together to do good. Like a team of heroes."</p><p>"Team?" Natasha asks, and Fury scoffs.</p><p>"Yes, a fucking <em> team</em>. There’s more to this world than even you know."</p><p>"Wouldn’t surprise me," Clint mutters. "Who else is on this team then?"</p><p>Fury pauses, then lifts a shoulder. "Only you. Not many immortals getting around these days."</p><p>Clint deflates with relief. Natasha too seems to lose some of the edge that she’d been carrying ever since the conversation had started. Fury is normal, or as close to normal as an eye-patch wearing secret agent can be. Except the idea of it all is so <em> insane </em> that he can’t help but wonder what the catch is. He doesn’t want to work for anyone besides himself and Natasha if she ever happened to ask, but he knows that he’ll also follow her wherever she wants to go. The ball is in her court; he wishes, silently, that she’ll find it as ridiculous as he does.</p><p>"I think you’re asking the wrong people," Natasha says eventually. "We’ve managed to exist quietly for centuries and this… I’m not one for risks, Agent Fury."</p><p>Fury regards her carefully, then shrugs. "The world might need people like you."</p><p>"And maybe we'll be there when it does." Her hand finds his and he squeezes it. He's on her side, like always. "For now we would like to be left alone. We're already playing a dangerous game."</p><p>Clint thinks that Fury might protest, but he simply holds his hand out for them to shake. His grip is tight, like a warning, perhaps. Clint's never been good at listening to warnings.</p><p>"Hopefully you're a little easier to find next time. There's a lot we could discuss."</p><p>"Not making any promises," Clint says. "Especially since you ruined the ballet."</p><p>Fury grins. It's unsettling, and Clint's more than happy to watch the man finally leave them alone. Natasha doesn't take her eyes off his retreating figure until she can't see him anymore. Then, she turns and leans into him, side by side. He winds his arm around her waist and draws her closer, trying to ease her distress.</p><p>"We need to leave," she says.</p><p>"Yea," Clint agrees tiredly. "I know."</p><p>They walk back to the apartment in silence. Yelena has her head resting on Kate's lap when they push the door open, a bowl of tostitos resting on her stomach. Kate sticks her leg out to trip him as he passes, then grins sweetly at Natasha. She doesn't see it. Clint's not sure she'll even remember how they got from the theatre to here.</p><p>"I think I would have liked the 1800's," Yelena is saying, face pulled into a concentrated frown. "The art is so cool. Don't you think I would have made the perfect model?"</p><p>Kate pinches Yelena's cheeks and pretends to inspect her closely. "I think you could have gotten away with it. Squinting helps."</p><p>"Hey!" Yelena protests. "Don't be mean just because I bet you in Guess Who."</p><p>"I'm not even annoyed," Kate grumbles. "It's just a game. Do you wanna play Clint?"</p><p>He looks up from where he's had his head stuck in the fridge, searching for a beer. Natasha sits idly at the kitchen table and smiles softly when he slides one across to her. It's a crime that he didn't get to spend the whole night watching her face light up at the ballet, so he adds a tally against Fury's name and holds onto the grudge for later.</p><p>"You weren't supposed to be back yet," Yelena says before he can reply. She sits up, twists so she can see Natasha. Clint knows Natasha better than he knows himself but Yelena knows something else, something that not even he does. "Everything okay Natka?"</p><p>"Fine," Natasha replies. She rubs her forehead then takes a swig of the beer. "We just need to leave again."</p><p>Kate sighs. "Was it that stupid car?"</p><p>"Yes," Clint says. "There was some kind of, I don't know... Secret agent? Wanted us to help him save the world or some shit."</p><p>Clint's too tired to deal with Fury and his offer. He's too tired to deal with having to pack up and leave again, and he sees it on Kate's face that she is too. They've dragged her halfway across the world and back and she hasn't had one place to call home yet. At least he's had that in the past, even if it was so many years ago that he can't honestly remember <em> where </em>exactly it was. He just wants them all to settle and live the quiet life they deserve.</p><p>"He works for SHIELD," Natasha says. "Whatever that means. They've been keeping tabs on us. He called me—"</p><p>Natasha doesn't finish her sentence. Yelena huffs and lays her head back on Kate's lap. The apartment descends into silence and Clint debates going to bed just so the day will end faster. Natasha, always one step ahead, tilts her head down the hall towards their bedroom. His lips quirk and he nods.</p><p>"Called you what?" Kate calls after her as Natasha leaves the table. Clint follows, grasping her extended fingers when she reaches for him behind her back. "Hey! What did he call you?"</p><p>"Don't worry about it," he hears Yelena say. "They have their own thing. Do you want to take Lucky for a walk?"</p><p>He closes the door behind him and crosses the room to unzip Natasha's dress. She takes her beer and climbs into the unmade bed in just her underwear. He falls onto the other side, doesn't spill his drink and kicks his shoes off into the unknown space behind the bed. He wrenches the bow tie from around his neck and groans into the pillow.</p><p>Natasha's fingers thread into his hair. "I know you hate getting dressed up."</p><p>"I'm a little more annoyed that we didn't get to see the ballet."</p><p>"You don't like the ballet."</p><p>"Yea, but I like you," he says, turning his head so he can see the softness that passes over her features. "You were excited."</p><p>She shrugs. "I've had hundreds of years worth of disappointment. There's no use dwelling on it."</p><p>"Wow Tasha," Clint mumbles. "You could've told me in the eighteenth century if you weren't happy with—"</p><p>She puts a finger to his lips. "I'm perfectly happy. I have everything I need in this apartment with me."</p><p>Clint shuffles onto his back and sets the remainder of his beer aside. Omaha was never their end game, but it had been nice to think about staying. It's been too long since he's thought about staying somewhere. Natasha will want to leave the country and he can't blame her for it. Fury lingers like a bad taste in the back of his throat.</p><p>"Why did he call you that name?" Clint whispers. "Natalia of Scythia. I've never heard you say that before."</p><p>"It was long before you were even born, Clint," Natasha says. "Long before any of this—" She waves her hand around the room, at the closet and the TV on the wall, the makeup brushes she's meticulously lined up along the dresser—"Was even something I could dream of. Besides, you never asked about my life before."</p><p>He reaches for her and she meets him halfway, melting into his arms much like she had the very first time. "I guess I didn't think about how long you were on your own for."</p><p>"After Adrian I didn't know where to go, and eventually I found Maria." He feels the burst of air that might be a laugh against his chest. "Or maybe she found me. Either way, she took me in. The Scythians were warriors. Fierce, fearless—They taught me to fight. But Maria died and I couldn't go back to face them."</p><p>"It wasn't your fault," he tells her, even if he doesn't know if it's true. "All living things die eventually, Tash."</p><p>"I know," she says. "But it was lonely. And it was years before Yelena came into the picture. That's why I fought so hard for you."</p><p>"Didn't want me to be alone?"</p><p>"Yes. But I also didn't want you to be sad."</p><p>Clint nods. Natasha rubs his hair between her fingers and some kind of echo comes back to him then. They have scissors instead of shears now but the feeling is still there. He knows if he asks she'll say yes, every time, and it's worth something to be so lucky. <em> I'm not sad with you</em>, he thinks. <em> I'm alive</em>.</p><p>"We don't have to go far, you know," he says. "We don't have to leave America."</p><p>She stretches over him to put her own bottle aside and then curls up, content as a cat. They haven't had a cat since Liho. There's more than enough history in America to make them leave, but there's just as much in Europe. He remembers Paris without the Eiffel Tower, though he never says no to kissing Natasha underneath it.</p><p>"You know what I'm like. I don't take risks anymore."</p><p>"Oh yea?" Clint hums against her bare shoulder. "What was the last risk you took?"</p><p>"Coming back to find you," she replies. "I was terrified. You didn't have to forgive me."</p><p>"Course I did," he says. "It's you, Nat. It's always been you. I trust you even when I don't trust myself."</p><p>She grins. "Foolish man."</p><p>"Only for you."</p><p>When she kisses him it feels like the only right thing to happen all year. He touches her, re-learns her for the thousandth time; takes every piece of her apart slowly until they're both boneless, floating in bliss and the kind of love that takes decades to build upon. He holds her the same way he does in every country, every city. Yelena and Kate will hate it but he'll let them finally swim in the River Thames if they make it that far.</p><p>Home isn't a place as long as he has them, and there'll be other ballets. Maybe one day there'll be something new, like saving the world. Maybe one day he'll have a reason to leave everything behind again. He doesn't want it anymore, but maybe he'll have no choice. Maybe.</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>-</p><p>
  <b>Ventimiglia, Italy</b>
</p><p>
  <b>2014</b>
</p><p>They choose Ventimiglia for its proximity to the French border, but also because Kate, for the first time, doesn't want to immediately leave. When too many tourists gather in the summer they go to Menton and holiday there, or move further inland to any number of safe houses Natasha has spent the last fourteen years building. Sometimes Yelena and Kate leave them for a while, but for the most part they stay together. <em> Safety in numbers </em>, Yelena tells them, but Clint thinks she just doesn't want to be on her own again.</p><p>They don't have Lucky anymore, and Kate coaxes Yelena into feeding stray cats. There's fear in her eyes the first time one curls up in her lap and she spends the night huddled in Natasha's arms. He tells Kate about it all; the witch trials, the way that Yelena had hurt more than any of them over the years. The next day Kate teaches her how to feel more than the ache in her chest that makes her lungs burn, and when Clint comes home there's a ginger kitten curled in the crook of her arm.</p><p>It's not as easy as having a kitten. Yelena screams for weeks and Natasha can only try and hold them all together. He dreams of war, of Phil and a promise he never got to make. Kate still can't tell them how she came to be assassinating people for money but he knows that it's always been survival. When Yelena can't sleep, when Natasha's shoulders droop from exhaustion, he takes Kate outside and sits with her in the cool night air.</p><p>"Have you ever thought about helping people?" Kate asks. "I mean, I know you do. Have, whatever. But now. There are people who would hire you."</p><p>"It's not about the money, Katie," Clint says. He stares up at the stars and wonders how many he's seen before. "It's about Tasha. And you guys, too. We have to keep each other safe."</p><p>Kate shrugs. "It might make her feel better. Or it might make Lena feel better."</p><p>Clint's never heard anyone call Yelena anything <em> other </em>than Yelena. When he glances at Kate her cheeks are pink and he gets it, then. How much more of herself she's been giving out without them realising.</p><p>"What kind of stuff are you thinking of?" He asks after a minute. Kate smiles and he thinks he got something right.</p><p>It takes him a month to talk Natasha into it. There are more people wanting their help than he would ever have realised, and it's easy enough to keep their secret close to their chests. They help, here and there; never the same person twice, never giving anything of themselves that could come back to bite them in the ass. But at the end of the it doesn't take the weight off quite like Kate had hoped. If anything, it only makes it a little easier to breathe.</p><p>They're in Kiev on vacation when they get the call. Clint and Natasha meet the CIA operative by the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument, then bring Yelena and Kate with them to South Sudan. A group of kidnapped children await them inside a desert fortress but Clint can't shake the chill, even with the sun burning across his shoulders. Kate makes a joke about South Sudan being the one place they might be able to live unbothered. The compound is empty; he hears a gun cock in the silence, then feels the first bullet rip through his abdomen.</p><p>When he wakes up Natasha is already pushing herself to her feet. His hand still clutches his bow, and it only takes him a second longer to get his bearings and stand. There's a shout; he won't remember it later, won't remember how the people who had just killed them beg for their lives. All he'll remember is the bloodshed, the look on Natasha's face. The betrayal that runs through him, thick as poison. Kate and Yelena don't speak on the flight back to France.</p><p>"I liked this shirt," he tells Natasha when she sits beside him. There are a dozen holes and enough blood to make it unrecognisable now. "I've had it for like, thirty years."</p><p>Natasha lets her head fall back against the wall of the plane. It's the first time he's been smuggled out of a country in the back of a drug courier but he'll take it over walking any day. "They set us up."</p><p>"I know," he sighs. "Fucking CIA. What did they want?"</p><p>"Proof," she replies. "You know how important that is."</p><p>He knows better than anyone. "Guess we know what that means, then."</p><p>Natasha closes her eyes. Clint finds her hand and squeezes. She moves her head to loll against his shoulder and he mentally checks all of the holes on her own clothing. No fresh blood, nothing to worry about. He meets Kate's gaze across the plane and shrugs off the apology he sees on her lips. She doesn't need to blame herself, but he's not sure how to tell her that.</p><p>Back in France, Natasha takes them to Castelnou. They take turns scrubbing the blood from their skin and then sit around a box of cheap pizza. Clint's not hungry, but he humours himself for old times sake. Yelena can barely keep her head propped up with her hand and Kate looks like she's expecting someone to start yelling. Natasha rests her feet in his lap, staring out the window at the moon.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Kate blurts eventually. Yelena's head falls and she wakes with a snort, blinking at them blearily. Clint doesn't laugh even when Natasha's lips quirk in amusement. "I shouldn't have suggested it."</p><p>"Not your fault," he mumbles around a slice of pizza.</p><p>Natasha shrugs. "It was a good idea. We should have considered that this could happen."</p><p>"It wouldn't have if I had just kept my mouth shut," Kate says.</p><p>"Don't be so hard on yourself," Yelena manages around a yawn. "No use. You'll end up like they did."</p><p>"It's a little different," Clint reminds her. "We lost you, Yelena."</p><p>She waves him off. "I had my lucky emerald. I was coming back."</p><p>"It's different," Kate says softly. "I risked us all. It was a set-up and now... Now they <em> know </em> and—"</p><p>Kate gets up and storms out of the house. The door slamming jolts Yelena upright and she makes to go after Kate; Natasha stops her, pulls herself off the couch with a weary sigh and heads for the door instead. She squeezes his shoulder as she passes and he watches her go.</p><p>"It's not a big deal." Yelena slumps back into the couch cushions. "I could go for a drink though."</p><p>"Last I heard you were too young," he teases.</p><p>"Ha ha. I'll ask Natalia."</p><p>"Do what you want," he says, stretching his hands above his head. "God, today hurt."</p><p>"Bullets will do that," Yelena says. She closes her eyes; Clint keeps his open, if only for the sake of pretending that they're watching out for each other. It doesn't make a difference in the end, because he still misses the smoke bomb thrown through the window, still misses the bullet that pierces Yelena's skull.</p><p>He has half a second to move, and then the world goes black.</p><p>-</p><p>Clint wakes up in a van. His head smacks the ground and he feels the shock of it all the way down to his toes. Yelena kicks him in the shin and he forces his eyes open again to find her face. There's blood on her face, blood on her shirt. The men sitting in the van roll their eyes as she sticks her tongue out at them.</p><p>"It's rude to shoot someone," she's saying, and Clint shakes his head to try and clear out some of the static in his ears. "I'm just a kid. Did you think about that? How many of you have children?"</p><p>To his surprise, some of the men raise their hands. He wonders idly how long Yelena has been yelling at them for.</p><p>"Exactly. Would you like it if I shot your kid?"</p><p>There's a general disagreement between them all. Clint coughs and Yelena looks back at him, smile replacing the angry scowl she'd been wearing. "You're awake! Took long enough."</p><p>Clint feels his heart plummet. "How long?"</p><p>"Don't worry, it's because of the tranqs," Yelena replies airily. "I know they did it because bullet wounds <em> never </em>take that long."</p><p>"Okay," he breathes. His hands are bound behind his back, feet chained to the floor. He sees thinly veiled panic surfacing in Yelena's eyes and tries to distract her. "Any idea where we're going?"</p><p>"Shut up," one man says, shoving Clint in the shoulders. "No talking."</p><p>"Don't speak to him like that," Yelena snaps. "He's old and he can't handle it."</p><p>Clint scoffs. "Like you can talk princess."</p><p>"Airport!" Yelena cries. The men exchange nervous looks and she grins, triumphant. "I've been guessing where they're taking us <em> forever </em>. I don't know what comes after the airport though."</p><p>Clint looks around the van. There's just the two of them on the floor and enough armed guards to be a challenge, but there's no sign of Kate or Natasha. He wants to ask Yelena if she knows anything else but can't risk giving them away. So he fiddles with the cuffs around his wrists, realises that there's no way of getting them off, but Yelena has already had the same idea as him. She winks. All hell breaks loose.</p><p>When the van stops Clint's got more blood on him than he did at the beginning. The doors are flung open; he squints against the light, feels Yelena push her shoulder into him.</p><p>"Any chance we can get these taken off?" She asks with outstretched hands. Drowning has changed her. He wonders if it was just the ocean, sharpening her edges for hundreds of years.</p><p>"Get out!" A voice calls, so they climb out of the van in single file. Clint itches for his bow and hates that he has absolutely no way of defending himself, or of even knowing what happened. Rifles trained at their chests keep them moving, towards a plane that's a far cry better than what they used to escape their botched mission.</p><p>"Maybe I'll get a drink here," Yelena says, but Clint doesn't have time to answer. Something pricks the side of his neck. The last thing he sees is his own feet on the way down.</p><p>-</p><p>"Did you know they pulled Captain Spangles from the ice?" Yelena asks. She winces but doesn't cry as the doctor shaves off a slice of the skin on her stomach. "Why didn't we hear about that?"</p><p>Clint's waiting for the bones in his fingers to reset themselves, so all he can manage is, "Good for him."</p><p>He's not entirely sure how much time has passed. What he does know is that they're stuck, fast; him and Yelena in a room that mimics a hospital but does more harm than good. He's been poked and prodded and experimented on without even fully knowing <em> why</em>, just that there's an organisation looking to monopolise on his DNA for the greater good. Clint calls bullshit, and Yelena's bitten enough doctors that she's only just had the gag removed. It's tiring. He just wants to go home.</p><p>"This won't do anything," Yelena says to the doctor. "Why would anyone want to live forever? It's boring."</p><p>"Why wouldn't they?" The doctor asks. "This could change lives."</p><p>"All things die," Clint says. "We'll die one day, too. This isn't perfect."</p><p>"It is for now."</p><p>Yelena rolls her eyes. Clint can finally move his fingers, so he checks to see if his restraints are still too tight for him to wriggle his wrists out. The lab descends into silence except for the steady ticking of the machine tracking their heartbeats. It might have been one day. It might have been a week. All Clint knows is the sound of the machine, the sound of Yelena's breathing.</p><p>And then.</p><p>The door is flung open; he doesn't have time to flinch before an arrow has embedded itself in the doctor's neck. He strains to sit up and sees Kate enter, and Natasha is only a step behind her. Natasha, who looks more beautiful every time he sees her. Natasha, who he never lost faith in, who he knew would move mountains to get them back. Natasha, who has a bright red patch on the shoulder of her shirt.</p><p>"She isn't healing," Kate says. She works fast to untie him and he tries to get his brain to catch up to what she's saying. "She was stabbed and she isn't healing."</p><p>"What?" Yelena asks. Her right hand is freed by Natasha and she uses it to touch the wound, drawing away with bloodied fingers. "Natka?"</p><p>"It's nothing," Natasha assures her. She meets his gaze over the beds and smiles weakly. "We need to get you guys out of here."</p><p>Kate has his bow. He's never been more grateful to wrap his fingers around the wooden limb. Natasha comes to his side and he swallows the fear that crawls up his throat at the sight of the blood. She leans up to kiss him and he meets her halfway, like always.</p><p>"We cover Natasha," he says. "And we all walk out of here alive."</p><p>-</p><p>Clint will never remember how they got out. There was death, he knows that much. He knows that Kate pushed the pharmacy executive out of the window to save Natasha, and he knows that they got away for the most part without being seen. He patches Natasha up in the back of a car they let Yelena drive. His stitches are wonky, but he's never had to do it before.</p><p>The days bleed together. The wound heals naturally; Natasha sits in the sun and tilts her head up towards the sky. He watches her every day, scared to blink in case she'll disappear. The house is quieter, now, as though Yelena and Kate are too scared to make a sound. As though they're too scared that she'll leave, too.</p><p>At night he kisses her. They don't talk about what comes next. They don't talk about how or why or when. They just live, and live well. He loves her like every day will be the last time and doesn't let himself think that one day it will be true.</p><p>Fury finds them in Budapest. Clint doesn't want to see him but Natasha invites him for coffee, so they sit on the banks of the Danube at a little cafe that sells cookies the size of his face. Natasha keeps one hand on his thigh and it warms him right down to his toes.</p><p>"The world needs you," Fury says.</p><p>Clint's shaking his head before he's even finished speaking. "The world can go fuck itself. We just got <em> away </em> from people who didn't want anything except to hurt us. <em> Use </em> us. I don't trust anyone."</p><p>"I don't heal," Natasha says softly. "I want you to keep an eye on them."</p><p>"What?" Clint asks. "Tasha, what do you—"</p><p>She leans forward, rests her elbows on the table. Looks Fury dead in the eye and says, "You make sure nobody touches Yelena or Kate again."</p><p>He nods. Clint watches some kind of mutual understanding pass between them and realises that maybe Natasha knows Fury better than he thought she did. There's still secrets between them, secrets that they keep to protect one another. His heart aches. There's tenderness on her face when she looks at him, and he knows, then. Knows how much she's sacrificed to get them here.</p><p>"It's been an honour," Fury says, as though it's the end.</p><p><em> It's not</em>, Clint thinks. <em> She's okay. She's right here and she's okay. </em></p><p>Natasha doesn't say anything else. They drink their coffees, enjoy the sunshine. Fury leaves them sometime in the afternoon and then Clint walks with her, hand in hand, along the river.</p><p>"It's going to be okay," he tells her. "You know that, right?"</p><p>"Of course," she says with a smile that makes his knees shake. "I have you. All I've ever needed is you."</p><p>"I love you," he says. "Fuck, I love you. It'll work out."</p><p>"I love you too," she whispers. "<em>We'll </em>work it out."</p><p>The air cools slightly. Clint thinks about everything they still have to do. They've had centuries together and it still doesn't feel like enough time, and there's so much he wants to tell her. He thinks about doing it then but just wraps an arm around her shoulder instead. He has a lifetime; if he tells himself it enough he might almost be able to make it true.</p><p>The thing about dying is that it's only supposed to happen once. Clint's died over one hundred times now. Natasha's lost track, but they've waded into battle together more times than all of their deaths combined. That's how it's supposed to be, and if the world had ever been kind to him, that would be how it ended. But nothing ever goes to plan, and Clint knows that better than anything else.</p><p>So when they're walking the streets of Budapest, he doesn't think it will be the end then. He doesn't think that he'll only have minutes left with her. He only thinks about how much he loves her, how much he's got to say when they get home. He thinks that if he could kiss her one more time it would make the heartache of the day go away. But the world has never been kind to him.</p><p>Natasha falters, at first. Clint's not sure what's happening until her knees hit the ground, and then he sees a figure with a knife. That's all it will take, in the end; a man with a knife and not enough money to get him out of the hole he's fallen into. Natasha's life equates to the coins he suspects she carries in her purse. Clint's snapped his neck before he can even reach for her bag.</p><p>"Nat," he says, the only thing he can say. His heart thunders in his ears as he falls beside her, and when he touches her side the knife is still stuck fast in her abdomen. "Fuck. Fuck, Nat, don't touch it."</p><p>She grips the handle of the knife and pulls. Her smile is thin when she says, "It's okay, Clint."</p><p>"No," he says. "No, leave it. What are you doing?"</p><p>"Clint, it's okay," she repeats. "I love you. Don’t let this end you too."</p><p>The knife hits the ground beside her leg. Clint forces his hands onto the wound, watches her blood, as red as Coulson's, as red as Pietro's, coat his fingers. It's warm. She's always warmed him up.</p><p>"Stop," he says, desperate and so, so mad. "Natasha, no. There's so much I have to say. We can get help. They can fix this."</p><p>"It's okay," she whispers. "Let me go, Clint. I'm ready."</p><p>"I'm not," he sobs. Tears hit his cheeks, mix with the blood. So much blood. He's seen her bleed before but never like this. "It's unfair. It was... it was a fucking knife."</p><p>"You love me," she says. Her eyes flicker; he sits beside her, clutches at her hand. She knocks the one on her stomach away and he realises that he needs to let her. This is it. He can't stop it, no matter how hard he tries. "All I ever needed was your love."</p><p>"You have it, Tasha," he tells her. "Forever. You gotta remember how much I love you."</p><p>She nods. It seems to take all her energy, but she still clings to his fingers. He can see what she wants to say on her face, because he's always been able to read her. He's always known her better than himself. <em> Tell Yelena. Tell her she was special. Take care of yourself. It won't be forever until we meet again. </em></p><p>"What do you think it will feel like?" Natasha asks.</p><p>Clint sighs. "Just like falling asleep."</p><p>The sun sets across her face. Clint holds her hand until he can’t feel her squeezing back anymore. </p><p>-</p><p>"Where’s Natasha?"</p><p>Clint opens his mouth. He can feel the answer building at the back of his throat until it’s all he can taste. Yelena looks at him, and it’s the realisation on her face that forces some kind of sound out of his mouth. He’s not sure what he says, if he says anything at all. Kate puts her hand on Yelena’s shoulder.</p><p>"Where’s Natalia?" Yelena asks. Her voice is almost a whisper. She doesn’t need him to say it but she needs to hear it. "Clint?"</p><p>He breathes in. It feels like his lungs are full of cement. "I’m—"</p><p>"Natka." Yelena pushes a hand against her mouth, as though it will stop the pain from erupting out of her chest. He watches her fight the tears that gather in her eyes until there’s too many to stop. "Where’s Natka?"</p><p>"I’m sorry," he whispers. It’s all he can manage, and he hopes they know that. Hopes they know how hard he’s trying to keep it together when his world has been torn out from under his feet. "I couldn’t… Fuck, I’m so–"</p><p>Yelena marches towards him, face broken open in a sob, and curls her hands in the front of his shirt. She shakes him and he lets her until she has no energy left. He doesn’t know what else he can say. When she falls he catches her. It’s the least he can do.</p><p>-</p><p>There are universal truths. The world keeps spinning after Natasha dies but Clint gets left behind and can’t quite catch up this time. He stays with them in their grief for a month, and as soon as Yelena can pull herself from bed he’s got one foot out the door. Kate stops him, presses a phone into his hands.</p><p>"Let us know," she whispers. "My number is in there. If you can, let us know when you go."</p><p>He nods. Words have dried up in his throat more times than not and he doesn’t care enough to force them out. He hugs Kate, and he hugs Yelena too; he wishes, more than anything, that he could stop the hurt for her. She misses Natasha almost as fiercely as he does. He lets her keep the halberd, gives Kate his bow and makes them promise to take care of each other with just a look. Kate nods. She’s always understood him the most.</p><p>Clint doesn’t know where he’s going. He walks again, like he did before he knew her. Walks until his feet bleed but doesn’t stop to wait for them to heal. He tries not to think about Kate or Yelena but knows that together they’ll be fine. They know enough about the world to get themselves by, and he hopes that one day they’ll just stop breathing together, side by side like they were always meant to be.</p><p>He doesn’t know how much time passes. He goes to Fury for a while, takes missions that should kill him. When the skin heals, when the blood continues to pump through his body, it hurts more than any physical wound ever will. Natasha would tell him to stop being so dramatic, but she’s not here anymore. He still hears her voice, late at night, a whisper that almost feels too real.</p><p><em> Don’t let this end you too, </em> she had said, and he thinks, <em> my soul wasn’t supposed to be on it’s own again, Tasha. </em></p><p>When Fury becomes too much—or maybe it’s too little and he just can’t tell anymore—he starts doing what he thinks she would want him to. There’s still people who need saving and he’s not so worried about being found out until he remembers the girls he left behind. He’s more careful, then, but still. Every time a bullet slices through him he closes his eyes and hopes.</p><p>It takes longer than he would have liked. The days blur, the work becomes monotonous. Clint tries to spend some time just living in a little village in Germany. He never goes back to France. Everything’s too much or not enough, so he keeps walking, keeps moving. He even visits Yelena and Kate, once, years and years later. They ask him how he is and he lies through his teeth, and when Kate squeezes his hand it stings. And still he clings to her, for a moment. Remembers what it’s like to be loved.</p><p>He knows, then, that it will be the last time he ever sees them. Maybe they know too, because they walk him all the way back to his apartment and don’t look back when they leave.</p><p>He’s in Vienna when it happens, caught in the middle of a terrorist attack. There’s no slow-motion for Clint; just the feeling of shrapnel slicing into his arm, and then his blood dripping onto the street. He watches, fascinated, as it keeps bleeding. <em> Natural</em>, he thinks, and <em> at last</em>, he thinks. He’s so busy looking that he doesn’t even feel the bullet that rips through his stomach.</p><p>His good hand clutches his phone. He drags himself into a small space between an overturned car and a wall. It’s quiet, there. Quiet enough that he can hear his own breath, rattling in his chest. The world spins, and he knows that it’s supposed to do that. All living things die eventually. It just took him a little longer.</p><p>He thinks of her as he types the message. Thinks of her smile and the way that it had been just for him. How beautiful she was with the sun caressing her cheeks, and he remembers everything: the river and their first time and all of the times after that. How he loved her and she loved him. How they made a life together and meant it. He remembers how she had held his hand, and more than anything he remembers her voice, the green-gold of her eyes. </p><p><em> Let me go</em>, she had said.</p><p>
  <em> Only this once, Tasha. Only for you.  </em>
</p><p>Clint doesn’t feel the pain. What he does feel is relief. His thumb hovers over the send button, and in the end he won’t know if he pressed it before or after he finally, <em> finally </em> died. It doesn’t matter. Half a world away, Kate’s phone vibrates on the table in front of her. The news plays live footage of the terror attacks and Yelena presses a hand against her mouth. They don't need to read the message but they do. For him and for her and for the love story they left behind. </p><p><em> I’m going home Katie</em>, it reads. <em> I can’t wait to see her. </em></p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>what would you like? i’d like my money’s worth.<br/>try explaining a life bundled with episodes of this—<br/>swallowing mud, swallowing glass, the smell of blood<br/>on the first four knuckles.<br/>we pull our boots on with both hands<br/>but we can’t punch ourselves awake and all I can do<br/>is stand on the curb and say sorry<br/>about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.</p><p>i couldn’t get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.<br/>— little beast, richard siken</p><p>here is: <a>the spotify playlist</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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